


The redemption of Vlad Masters, from terrifying villain to drunk wine uncle

by TheLadySyk0



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Ancient Relics, Cats, Character Study, Drama, Dungeons and Dragons, Fluff, Funny, Ghosts, Humor, Other, Vlad is so dramatic, Wine, coming to terms with the fact that you're an asshole, drunk summoning a demon, links to angsty 80s music, redeption, vlad is an idiot, who are assholes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-03-10 00:37:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13493160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadySyk0/pseuds/TheLadySyk0
Summary: Due to an encounter with a magical relic, Vlad Masters has suddenly and rudely been forced to come to terms with the fact that he is a bitter asshole and that most of the problems he has in his life are of his own fault. He doesn't know if he can change, but he decides to try. He tries to rekindle the friendship he had with Maddie and Jack Fenton, and Jack has the perfect idea on how to get back in touch! How about picking up the old DND game they used to play in college?Danny and his friends are obviously suspicious of Vlad spending so much time at the house, and so they ask to join in on the DND game. Shenanigans ensue.Loosely based off a piece by notllorstel on tumblr of Vlad Jack and Maddie playing DND in college!http://theladysyk0.tumblr.com/post/176568404486/notllorstel-sum-nerds-for-bravelydenying





	1. The deity of truth is a jerk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JJCross](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JJCross/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Espil Mirror](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2605637) by [JJCross](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JJCross/pseuds/JJCross). 



> So I recently got back into an old fanfiction I used to love called "The Espil Mirror" and lemme tell you, it's fantastic. While reading I got the idea for this and well...here it is!

Vlad Plasmius floated through the Ghost Zone, plumes of greenish-grey smoke billowed past him, curling and snaking ominously.The space around him seemed to groan, stretching around him yawning, moving slightly back and forth like the breath of some massive creature. The air itself crackled with energy, Vlad could feel it through his gloved hands as it thrummed relentlessly. It almost seemed alive.

Or at least as alive as anything really could be in the Ghost Zone.

A small island came into view, the tops of the jagged mountains piercing the fog and the smoke, parting them like a great green curtain. Lush and foreboding foliage covered the mountain island. It felt like thousands of eyes of long dead creatures watched Vlad as he approached.

Vlad smiled to himself, a wry, satisfied twist of his lips. “Why yes...I believe that this is the place…”

Vlad lowered to the island, his cloak billowing behind him as he descended. His boots touched the soil and he looked out into the woods in front of him. Something moved in the jungle to his left. Vlad turned to glare at the sound, his brows furrowed for a moment, pink energy coming to light around his fist.

When nothing emerged, he pulled a large piece of paper from his pocket. The page looked immensely old, torn and faded. Stains around the edge looked suspiciously like decades old bloodstains. It was a map to something on the island, something lost and long forgotten.

Vlad studied the map for a long moment, looking to the island around him for his bearings. He smiled and stepped into the forest.

Vlad growled as he cut through a mass of thorny vines, his pink ecto-energy in the form of a machete. Green ectoplasm leaked from the vines as the cut plants hissed and writhed before falling to the ground.

“Oh butter biscuits!” Vlad hissed to himself as green ooze got on his shoe. He hopped awkwardly before wiping his foot on a nearby tree. “Disgusting.” He grumbled and smoothed down his tunic before continuing through the jungle, his shoulders hunched testily. “If I don’t find this DARN temple soon I SWEAR I will burn this entire forest and-”

Vlad suddenly came nose-to-nose with a snarling face. He yelped and jumped back, putting up his fists that glowed with ghostly energy. “WHO ARE YOU AND HOW DI-”

Oh.

It was a statue.

Vlad put a hand to his chest and chuckled. “Oh cheese logs... it’s just a statue…” He floated back over to the stone carving, brushing off a couple of stray vines from around the form.

The statue was taller than Vlad himself, snarling down at the half-ghost. The statue was vaguely female, through they seemed to be badly degraded from their time in the jungle, their mouth open in screaming rage, thick tusks protruding from their mouth. Two sets of slitted eyes stared out from her face, from her elbows multiple sets of forearms fanned out, each set holding what must have been swords or spears before the elements wore away at the stone. Given that this was the ghost zone, and that time worked differently than how it did in the human world, Vlad figured that the statue was most likely millenia old…

Vlad squinted at an inscription at the bottom of the statue, a long forgotten language. Vlad’s brows furrowed as he slowly translated the inscription. “Wary be the traveler…” Vlad read “For the truth of truths is a sword in which few can wield, for many cannot embrace the truth of which they seek…”

Vlad rolled his eyes “...They might as well have said ‘You can’t handle the truth’...” He pulled up his map again “Whatever.” he groused, squinting angrily at the paper.

Following the path from the statue Vlad soon came to a large cave in the side of the mountain. Stalagmites and stalactites formed jagged points on the top and bottom of the cave, arching outward like teeth. The cave was flanked on either side by similar statues to the one found in the woods, though these were much better preserved, having been protected from whatever elements there were in the ghost zone by the opening of the cave. Being better preserved Vlad could see intricate carvings of beads and medallions across the necks of the statues, the folds of their dresses and the gilded hilts of the swords they held in their hands.

“DON’T GO IN!” A voice hissed from the forest.

Vlad turned around, his fists and eyes aglow with pink energy.

On old shriveled ghost stood at the forest. The wrinkled and hobbled old ghost wore only a ratty loin cloth, their tangled hair and snarled beard trailing past their knobbly knees. They pointed one shaking and blue skinned finger at Vlad. “DON’T DO IT!” they hissed, clenching a shaking fist in dire warning.

Vlad raised an eyebrow at the old ghost. “Oh? Why not?”

The old ghost put their wrinkled hands to their ears, their eyes clenched shut as if in pain. “IT SPEAKS THE TRUTH!!! THE TRUTH!!!”

Vlad opened his mouth, raising a finger. He paused, lowering his finger and closing his mouth. “....isn’t that the whole point?....that’s...that’s the whole point of the relic housed here….”

“THE TRUUUUUUTH!!!” The old Ghost shrieked and shook their head, backing slowly back into the shadow of the jungle. “THE THUUUuuuuuuuthhhhh……”

And with that final declaration the ghost faded entirely into the darkness.

Vlad watched as the spirit faded into the trees. He was actually pretty sure that the ghost didn’t really disappear, and really was just sitting in the bush at the edge of the jungle.

“WELL!” Vlad clapped his hands together, his lips thinning to a harsh line “I am going to NOT do what the crazy forest man said. That seems like the best course of action if I am being honest with myself….Yes always best to do the opposite of what crazy people tell you to do…”

A blue wrinkled hand extended outwards from the bush on the edge of the forest just long enough to flick Vlad off before reeling back into the foliage.

Vlad scowled, turning on a heel defiantly and walking into the mouth of the cave. Torches came to life on either side of the cave, blue flames flickering and sending watery shadows across the pale stone walls.

“Well that’s ominous.” Vlad acknowledged, sending a mild glare into the cave. He shrugged “I suppose it is standard for spooky cave temples that hold ancient artifacts though…”

He continued down the path further into the cave. On the walls of the cave, illuminated by the blue light of the torches was an intricate mural. The mural showed figures coming to a great deity, the figure tall and feminine with multiple forearms that branched from their elbows. The figures prostrated in front of her, begging with their hands in the air. A scroll appeared above the heads of the worshippers in the mural, the worshippers smiled gratefully but-

In the next section of mural the worshippers were now scattered. One was in the corner crying, another had their mouth open with rage, waving their arms around angrily. One worshipper was jumping up and down angrily on the proclamation the deity had issued, another one was trying to set the paper on fire…

Finally at the last section of the mural the worshippers abandoned the temple, their shoulders hunched angrily, walking out into the forest.

Vlad squinted at the mural, his brows furrowed. “Wait a minute….” He scowled at the carved stone “If they all left then who carved this section of the mural?”

A great flame roared to life at Vlad’s side, rousing him from his musings. Large blue flames shone on either side of a large intricately carved stone throne. On the throne was another statue, larger than the others had been. She was twelve feet tall sitting down, the pleats of her carved dress spilling across the floor, gold beaded necklaces wound themselves around her neck, gold jeweled bracelets adorned her many wrists, her arm branching into many forearms at the elbow. She wore an intricate headdress, finely beaded with an embroidered veil, obscuring the two sets of eyes that stared out at Vlad from under the fabric. The fabric was moth eaten and degraded by age, but still lovely in a haunting way. Something crunched under Vlad’s boot and he realized that the floor was covered in long dried flower petals.

He approached the dias, an inscription sat at the statue’s feet. His brows furrowed as translated the text.

“Ask.” Vlad read out loud. “Ask and it shall be answered.”

Vlad wet his lips, looking up at the statue in front of him. “Ask huh?...”

The statue didn’t answer him, only stared back at the half ghost from their throne.

“Alright…” Vlad nodded to himself. He stood straighter, walking up the steps of the dias, looking up at the statue, his face awash with the light from the blue flames. “Deity of truths, holder of all knowledge I have a very important question to ask you….”

Vlad stared up at the statue, breathing heavily. This was the moment. It all lead up to this. All this work, all this planning, stealing an ancient treasure map…

All to ask a question from the spirit, the deity of truth…

He took a breath and-

“WHY DOESN’T MADDIE FENTON LOVE ME?” Vlad demanded. He put his hands to his hips indignantly.

The statue moved slightly. Vlad eyes glowed with pink energy as he prepared for an attack.

The statue’s arms moved and Vlad could now see that the intricately carved arms were jointed, moving with some sort of hidden mechanism. Her many hands came together, precise like the workings of a clock. The automaton bowed slightly, lowering their hands and offering an elegant gold-tipped scroll to Vlad.

Vlad eyed the scroll for a moment before lunging to retrieve it from the hands of the machine. With the scroll removed from their hands, the automaton went back to its original position.

Vlad unrolled the scroll. Finally the truth that he-

“Because you are a deeply unpleasant person.”

Vlad gaped indignantly and threw the scroll to the floor. “I am NOT!”

This time the automaton didn’t bother handing Vlad a scroll, a scroll simply appeared out of thin air rocketing towards Vlad and beaning him between the eyes, knocking him back harshly with a loud WHAP. He unrolled the next scroll where he was lying prone on the temple floor.

“You really are.” The scroll read.

Vlad threw the scroll into the blue fire next to the automaton. “HOW DARE YOU!” He put a hand to his chest “I WOULD BE A MUCH BETTER HUSBAND THAN-”

Another scroll hit Vlad harshly in the back of the head. He growled and picked it up from the floor.

“Nah.” the scroll simply read.

Vlad growled and threw this scroll as well. The little slip of paper fluttering to the floor.

“I’M RICH!” Vlad screamed “I’M EDUCATED! I COULD GIVE HER ANYTHING SHE WANTS! I’M-”

Vlad almost expected the scroll that hit him in the face this time, unfurling over his head and draping across his dramatic villainous hairdo.

“You’re also unpleasant.” The scroll read “...deeply unpleasant.” The scroll continued “People are weirded out to be around you.”

Vlad stared at the paper, crossing his arms and holding up his nose haughtily. “...but people love me! I’m the mayor I-”

Another scroll appeared out of nowhere. “I mean I’m an ancient statue in the middle of the ghost zone and I’m even a bit weirded out by you....”

Vlad shook his head, putting a hand to his temple to rub at the headache forming there “This is ridiculous. There is no way this is true. Daniel found out about my expedition and is messing with me.” He put his hands to his hips and looked about the room, squinting as if he would see the white haired ghost boy materialize at any moment “Enough Daniel, you got me. Real funny.”

Another scroll spat out at Vlad, bouncing across his face. Vlad stared at it for a moment before sighing and picking up the paper.

“No one else is here, Vlad.” the paper read.

Vlad scrunched the paper in a fist. “OH WHAT DO YOU KNOW?” Vlad hissed, his shoulders hunched. He sighed as yet another scroll hit him in the face, unrolling across his forehead and forcing him to look at the words.

“Deity of truth.” the scroll printed plainly. “Holder of all knowledge. Or did you forget?”

Vlad shook off the paper. He crossed his arms testily. “I still don’t see why Maddie would love such an absolute BUFFOON.” He pointed angrily at his own chest “JACK DID THIS TO ME! HE MADE ME A HALF GHOST AND RUINED MY LIFE! HE DOESN’T DESERVE HER!” Vlad growled, clenching his fists “HE DESERVES TO BE TORN LIMB FRO-”

A scroll hit his cheek.

“Jack Fenton may have turned you into a half ghost, but you are the one who ruined your own life. You did that all on your own.”

Vlad shook his head “No!” He crumpled the paper in his hands. He clenched his eyes shut “No! He did this to me! He did this to me! He ruined me! Left me to rot in that god awful hospital and he took the woman I love!” His shoulders sagged. He grit his teeth.

The next scroll gently fluttered towards him.

“What Jack Fenton did was an accident. He tried to reach out to you in the hospital, but in your anger you rejected him. It was your fault you spent those years alone, rejecting the friend who wanted only to help you.”

Vlad remembered the hospital, Jack at his bedside, begging to be forgiven only for Vlad to scream, throwing a vase and demand he leave his room. He had been wracked with pain, covered in ecto acne and vomiting ectoplasm. He had been so angry….so angry at Jack but…

Vlad stared at the scroll in his hands. He thought about how close he and Jack had been before the accident, the years they spent as roommates, the theories they discussed, the stupid college shit they did together. He had wanted to believe that Jack had did it on purpose, to get him out of the way as a rival for Maddie’s love, but here it was, a proclamation from the deity of truth herself that what he did really was an accident…

“Jack…” He whispered. It felt like a stab to the gut. It was too late now anyways... Vlad suddenly felt tired. He regretted ever coming to this stupid island, he just wanted to go home.

Another scroll appeared before him. By now there was a small pile of scrolls around the floor by Vlad’s feet, shuffling as he picked up the newest scroll.

“Also you never loved Maddie.” The scroll read.

Vlad looked up at the statue, confusion written all over his face. “OK!” He glared unamused and motioned forcefully to the statue “now I KNOW! You are full of it!” He put a hand to his chest “My love for Maddie is STRONG and PURE and just because Jack didn’t put me in the hospital on purpose will never change the fact that I, VLAD MASTERS L-”

Vlad really wished that the statue would stop hitting him in the face with scrolls. Whatever happened to polite ghostly entities and/or immortal deities? Honestly. He sighed and unrolled the newest scroll to whap him across the face like a dog with a rolled up newspaper.

“Oh please.” The scroll read “You spent half your life fantasizing about having someone who would love you. The Maddie you love doesn’t exist, she’s just the product of your lonely imagination. An over-idealized doll for you to cling to pathetically. The real Maddie Fenton hates you.” There was a long space in the scroll but at the very bottom it continued “....Because you’re a deeply unpleasant person.”

Vlad sat on the floor of the temple, surrounded by scrolls. For the first time in a very long time he felt...small. He felt lost, deflated, his entire view of the world and of himself smashed into dust. Piece by piece the wall of his self delusion was coming apart.

“...She didn’t used to hate me…” Vlad whispered to himself, resting his chin on his knees, looking out at the paper proof that everything he thought he knew was a lie. “...we used to be good friends in college…”

A scroll landed on his boots.

“You used to be less of an asshole then.”

Vlad huffed out a small laugh. He wanted to cry. When was the last time he cried? He looked up at the statue, their eyes gazing impassively from behind their moth eaten veil. He felt stupid, untethered, unsure, the same way he felt when he first began to get his ghost powers, unsure of who he was, if he was a freak or-

Vlad sighed and closed his eyes. Now he knew why they abandoned this temple. Truth hurt. “...can I….” His mouth suddenly felt dry “...Can I change?”

...

silence.

There was no scroll. No piece of paper thrown haphazardly into his face with biting, sarcastic but TRUE words.

“COME ON!” Vlad stood, disrupting the paper that had accumulated around him “COME ON! TELL ME!” His eyes were wide and desperate, searching the statue for a reaction. “PLEASE! TELL ME IF I CAN CHANGE!”

...

Nothing.

Energy formed around Vlad’s hands, blazing pink ecto energy. “ANSWER ME!” He screamed.

A small piece of paper floated down from the ceiling, a tiny scrap. Vlad’s eyes widened and he dived for the paper.

“Yes.” The paper read. Vlad sighed out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, combing back some of his hair. He turned the scrap over and-

“And no.”

Vlad sat up, staring at the paper, turning it over in his hands. He shook his head and looked up at the statue “...what...what the heavens does this mean.”

Suddenly a very large scroll thunked down onto the floor besides Vlad. Vlad could barely hold the roll of paper. He unfurled the message, glad that the deity chose not to throw this one in his face.

“Yes and no.” The scroll read “You, Vlad Masters, as all creatures endowed with free will, have the ability to change. Whether this is for the better or worse, is ultimately up to you. You are as of current, a bitter, unpleasant, middle aged man, who has up to this point, been a manipulative dick to just about everyone he has ever known. You rejected your best friend, and were a creepy asshole to the woman who used to also be your friend. You have the mistaken belief that because you are a half ghost that the world owes you something, that because you are not a part of either world, ghost or human, that you deserve to rule both. You have lied, stolen, cheated, manipulated, and hurt a lot of people.”

Vlad continued to scroll down the massive message.

“In order to change you must forgive your past, move on, and work hard to become a better person.” Vlad sighed as he read this sentence, grimacing slightly.

“It will take a lot of work, a lot of patience. You have the capacity for change, though whether you will change, whether you’ll stop being a bitter old asshole, is entirely up to you.”

Vlad stared at the scroll in front of him. His hands shaking as he read the words over and over. He licked his lips nervously. He could change. He COULD change but…

  


Vlad exited the cave, his hair mussed and a glazed look in his eyes. Everything he had thought about himself and the world for over twenty years had just been crushed to dust in front of his eyes. 

The old man ghost sat on a log in front of the mouth of the cave. The wrinkly old man ghost kicked his feet happily and patted the space on the log next to him.

Vlad stared at the old log, at the winkly half naked ghost man on it.

...

He sat on the log.

The old man spirit patted Vlad’s back amicably, like a grandpa comforting a kid who just lost a baseball game “She’s harsh ain’t she? Completely tore apart your view of the world and how you see yourself didn’t she?”

Vlad nodded dumbly.

The old man nodded. He looked at Vlad. “Don’t let it get ya too down!” He put a winkled hand to his chest “I mean she told ME that I was just a creepy old man that lived in a jungle and yelled prophecies at passersby to ease the fact that I’m completely useless!” The man chuckled and slapped a knobbly knee, their laugher turing manic as it went on.

Vlad stood up from the log. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t…” he shook his head and growled to himself “I don’t want to be this way I have to-”

“Run off into the forest, ignore the world and the truths about yourself, wear loincloths and yell things at people who try to go in the cave?” The old spirit suggested hopefully.

Vlad sighed, counting to ten silently to keep himself from vaporizing the spirit. “...No.”

“Oh.” The old ghost man shrugged, their eyes wide “Because that’s what I-”

“I FIGURED THAT.” Vlad snapped

Vlad paced back and forth in front of the log, his cape fluttering dramatically, the old man spirit watching him placidly. Vlad tapped his lips. “No I have to...I have to do something but... I don’t know what I have to-”

“WELL.” The old man spirit stood up from the log and adjusted their loincloth as if it were a belt on a pair of pants. “While you figure that out I’m going to go back to being a crazy jungle hermit.”

Vlad watched the old man spirit run into the jungle, leaping over the log and diving into a bush.

“Something…” Vlad murmured, his brows furrowed “...I have to do something…”

 

 

Vlad laid back on his couch at home. His mansion seemed larger and emptier than it had ever been. Vlad held a wine glass in his hands, an open bottle of wine on the floor by the couch. Music blared over the sound system.

[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcOxhH8N3Bo ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcOxhH8N3Bo)

Vlad’s cat Maddie jumped onto the couch, she stepped onto Vlad’s chest and curled into a happy purring ball of fluff.

Vlad took another sip of wine, staring out into space, letting the sad music wash over him as he contemplated the day he just had.

“I’m a sad, bitter old man.” Vlad told himself, draining the rest of his wine glass “...And most of my problems are my fault.”

A scroll hit Vlad in the face. Vlad sat up, sending Maddie the cat careening to his lap where she hissed and jumped away.

“Yup.” The scroll read, printed matter of factly “And you have a lot of work to do, asshole.”


	2. The dumbo principle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very hungover Vlad tries to fix what he broke. Features a lot of flashbacks to Vlad Jack and Maddie's time in college and focuses on the friendship Vlad and Maddie used to share.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Don't think I forgot about this fic! I might take longer since I have to also update "Deadpool and Harley Quinn, BFFS 5-EVER", "Starship Skaia" and all my other open fics as well. I always update a fic every 15 days but every baby of mine needs some love! I did finish "Thor God of thunder, sitter of babies tho so that's good!"
> 
> I hope you like Vlad being a hungover dofus, flashbacks and FEELINGS all over the gosh darn place!

Vlad’s eyes were wide, his breath was ragged, staring down at the scroll in his lap. His Cat Maddie was on the floor by the couch watching him with reproachful eyes, cleaning herself angrily after Vlad had accidentally sent her tumbling off the couch in his panic.

“No no no no!” Vlad looked down at the scroll “I’m no longer at the temple! Why would-”

A new scroll appeared a couple feet above him materializing out of thin air before thumping down onto his lap with the first one. Vlad grimaced, eying the paper roll with fear and revulsion  like it was a live viper that had fallen into his lap. He reached for the roll with hesitant and shaking fingers, unfurling the delicate bundle.

“I am a deity, holder of all that is true, and you think that my influence is contained to my temple?”

Vlad threw up his hands “WHY? Haven’t you torn apart my world enough? Are you here to gloat? To taunt me further?” Vlad growled, tearing at his long grey hair and leaving it messy. He reached for the wine bottle next to the couch and poured himself another glass of wine. He glared at the red liquid as if filled the glass, shame pooling at the pit of his stomach. “I already know that I’m an asshole, that my problems are my fault…” He glared up at the ceiling, motioning vaguely with one hand and holding his wine glass in the other “Yes thank you...job WELL done…” he added, a sarcastic tinge to his words.

Another scroll appeared above Vlad’s lap. Now that he was really paying attention he could see that for a moment only the outline of the scroll was visible, like thin wire in the air, until like a watercolor brush being tipped to the page color bled through the item, gaining mass and falling. Vlad had just enough time to move his wine glass out of the way as the scroll tumbled to his lap.

“I’m not here to gloat…” The scroll explained. “I suppose I’m here because I’m… curious…”

Vlad huffed, arching an eyebrow. “I’m really supposed to believe that the being that supposedly knows everything is curious? What in the heavens do you have to be curious about? You already KNOW!”

Another thin scroll appeared. This time however, Vlad wasn’t quick enough to move his glass out of the way and the thin scroll landed in his wine, standing on end in his alcohol like a paper umbrella in a mixed drink. Vlad sighed and plucked the paper from his glass, scowling at the purple drips that landed on his pants and the hardwood floor. He unfurled the scroll carefully.

“I don’t know everything, only what is true….” Deep within The ghost zone, the four carved eyes of the automaton housing the deity narrowed behind their moth eaten veil “...As I explained before, humans have the capacity of free will. Your life branches out in front of you, a myriad of choices, twisting and turning into thousands of possible realities. You both will and will not let go of your anger. You both will and will not become a better person. You will carve a kinder and more compassionate life for yourself… However, the possibility of losing yourself further and further into hate, and ultimately, insanity is also equally as likely, both realities coinciding in your future until you choose…”

Vlad frowned at the last line, a crease forming between his brows. Insanity?

“You are schrodinger's cat.” the note summarized “In a state of limbo until you open the box, look into yourself and REALLY decide which path to take…” There was a large space in the paper, at the bottom of the note it was scrawled in almost shy lettering-

“I will admit it is… infuriating to not know… especially when one is the holder of all truths….”

Vlad rolled his eyes. He huffed, taking a sip of wine, his brows furrowed “Look for your entertainment elsewhere, I am not your PLAYTHING, my life is not a soap opera to be gawked at.”

The automaton of the deity laughed slightly where they sat on their carved throne, the grinding stuttering of gears within her mechanism. Another scroll appeared in Vlad’s lap scrawled in large mocking letters. “But I have so little to entertain me, besides…” There was another scraping and grinding of gears as the automaton laughed, one of her many hands rising to her carved mouth. “Do you really think you have a choice?”

Vlad sighed, his shoulders slumping with resignation. “...I suppose not…” He looked up at his ceiling, he knew logically that based on her current behavior that she could see him and hear him no matter where he was but, it was an automatic action for one to try and face the… person… they were talking to. “...So?” Vlad prompted “if you really are the knower of all truths… what should I do next to try and be a better person?”

Another scroll plopped daintily into his lap. “Oh Vlad…” Somehow Vlad could HEAR a giggle wisping about in the air around him, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up and a shiver run down his spine “That would ruin the game :)” 

The deity of all truth…

Actually drew out a smiley face at the end of the scroll…

Vlad huffed “Then what good are you? You really just plan on sitting back and WATCHING me try to be a better person?”

A tiny scrap of paper came into being in front on Vlad’s face. “Yup!”

Vlad growled. He pointed accusingly at the air in front of him. “See this is exactly why your followers left you in that temple! You are ABSOLUTELY no help at all! What good is it to have a deity of truth if all they do is go about being unreasonably sassy and unhelpful?!”

In their cavern the deity of truth rolled their eyes. “Oh fine.” The next scroll read “You big baby.”

Vlad settled back onto the couch a smug smile on his lips. “There we go...that wasn’t too hard was it?” He held his hand out demandingly “Come on now, out with it.”

Instead of landing in his outstretched hand the scroll rocketed through the air, hitting him harshly in the face. Vlad growled from under the paper.

“The truth is a sword in which few can wield, for few can handle the truth about themselves, who they are and where they stand…” Vlad rolled his eyes before continuing with the note “Though the truth may also be a salve, a treatment that allows old wounds to heal.”

Vlad’s brows furrowed. He didn’t like where this was going.

“Oh yes…” the scroll continued “I believe it is time you had a bit of a talk with Maddie Fenton…”

Vlad grimaced, his shoulders going stiff.

“...and told her the truth >:)...”

Vlad glared down at the paper. “...oh butter biscuits…” he swore quietly and with that he put the glass of wine to his lips and downed it in one go. He hissed, shaking his head at the sour taste before pouring another glass of wine and downing that as well. 

He poured a third glass and raised it as if to toast. “Well…” He sighed, the alcohol making his head spin just a bit.

“...This should be interesting…”

  
  


Maddie Fenton peeled off the mask of her blue hazmat suit. Her reddish hair was sweaty and a bit messy from its time trapped underneath the rubber. She was about to run a hand through her hair to straighten it when she realized that her gloved hands were covered in ectoplasm. She sighed and tugged off her gloves, leaving them on the table in her and Jack’s lab, next to the sparking machinery she had been working on.

“Jack?” Maddie turned to her husband. 

Jack was underneath the specter speeder, his back on a homemade mechanic’s creeper, welding something together. He didn’t seem to hear her over the sparking of the welder.

“JACK!” Maddie announced more insistently.

Jack startled. He turned off his welder and flipped up his welding helmet, looking upside-down at his wife “Yes love muffin?”

Maddie smiled down at him. “I’m not getting anywhere with the Fenton Ghost-trapper…” Looking ruefully back at the machinery on the table, sparking and oozing ectoplasm slightly. Maddie sighed “I think I’m going to take a break, get some fresh air…”

“Sure thing honey biscuit!” Jack smiled up at his wife. “Oh and when you come down can you get me uh..uh..” He waved his hand around vaguely.

Maddie smiled fondly down at her floundering husband “A cup of coffee?”

Jack’s eyes lit up “Yes! With the- and the-”

Maddie giggled slightly, thankful for the years of marriage that let her know exactly it was Jack was talking about without him actually saying the words. “With cream and a bit of cinnamon?”

Jack grinned, pointing a couple of finger guns at his wife, still upside-down on the mechanic’s creeper. “YEAH! EXACTLY THAT! DARLING, YOU NEVER CEASE TO AMAZE ME!”

Maddie snorted. She crouched down to place a kiss on Jack’s forehead. “Will do honey dumpling. Now don’t test anything when I’m gone, I know how you get excited and forget to double check your work…”

Jack sighed “Wouldn’t dream of it”

Maddie climbed the steps out of the lab and into the Fenton home. She stretched and walked to the kitchen, her back cracking. She checked the time on the kitchen microwave, 1:20, Danny and Jazz should be done with classes at 2:00, walking home and arriving at approximately 2:30. She went to the coffee pot, pouring herself the dregs of this morning’s coffee and putting the cup in the microwave. Well...unless Danny was out with his friends again… He had been spending more and more time away from home…

Maddie watched the cup spin in the microwave slowly. That was normal for teenagers though, Danny was a growing boy and he needed space away from his parents. The microwave dinged and Maddie took out her cup, inhaling the smell of warm coffee with a happy sigh. Besides, she thought as she took a contemplative sip of coffee, Jazz was also out a lot as well, taking a healthy amount of extracurricular activities… It wasn’t like Danny was getting into too much trouble.

Maddie’s brows furrowed mid sip of coffee. Or at least she didn’t think Danny was getting into too much trouble. She knew that there was something he had been keeping from her, a mother always knows, but she trusted him to come to her when the time was right…

Maddie tapped her nail on the side of her cup. She was worrying too much.. Back when she lived on her family’s farm her own mother had pointed to the geese wandering about the property and told her “See? Geese need mindin’! Stupid no-nuthin feathered jerks...” Her mother threw out a handful of feed to the birds, the geese squawking and shouldering past one another. “But children?” Her mother had shrugged and wiped her hands off on the gingham tablecloth she had wound around her thick hips as if it were an apron “Children don’t need much mindin’... they have enough sense, much more sense than people rightly give em proper due fer.”

Maddie smiled, remembering her mother before she frowned. Her and her cousins got into all sorts of trouble when she was young. Maybe the hands off approach wasn’t quite the best... She rubbed her temple.

Maybe she should have a talk with Danny when he got home…

The doorbell rang, startling Maddie from her musings. She put her coffee cup down on the kitchen table and ran a hand through her hair to try and fix it quickly, grimacing as she tugged her fingers through her snarled hair. “Oh darn it…”

The doorbell rang again. Then again and again.

“Yes! Coming!” Maddie began to walk towards the door, wondering who it was that was so darn important. “Yes! Sheesh! I’m coming!”

Maddie opened the door “Yes how may I-”

Vlad Masters was on the other side of the door, his finger hovering over the doorbell. He wore a black turtleneck and his usual ponytail was almost completely undone, the band just barely holding on, making his ponytail low and lopsided where it laid across his back.

Maddie stared at him, her purple eyes wide.

Vlad put up his hands “Wait Maddie hear me out before you-”

Maddie slammed the door on his face, or at least tried to. Vlad stuck his foot in the door last minute. “MADDIE WAIT I JUST WANT TO-”

Maddie pulled harder on the doorknob, stomping on Vlad’s sleek black dress shoe that he had put in between the door and the frame. Vlad reeled back with a yelp, hopping on one foot. Maddie closed the door completely.

“MADDIE!” Vlad knocked a fist against her door “I JUST WANT TO TALK!”

Maddie watched him through the peephole of the door, scowling “I’m DONE talking with you Vlad! I’m not going to leave Jack! I’m not going to MARRY YOU! I’m not going to-”

The Vlad on the other side of the door sighed, his shoulders slumping. “I...I know…”

Maddie paused on the other side of the door.

“I…” Vlad put his hand to his forehead and rubbed harshly “I’ve...I’ve mistreated you… I’ve mistreated you and Jack and your family and- and-”

Maddie Vlad through the peephole as he struggled for words. This Vlad was so different then the Vlad she had come to know recently, he wasn’t overly suave and polished, the politician always prepared with a speech and a slimy smile. He wasn’t the smiling lecher, his hand on her knee, looking at her like something he already owned.

This Vlad had tired smudges under his downcast eyes. His shoulders were slumped, his hair messy. He hadn’t shaved, a silver 5 o’clock shadow around his usually impeccably trimmed beard.

He looked like-

Back when Maddie was still in college, when perms were in style, Madonna was in vogue and Maddie had on several occasions uttered the phrase “Like, gag me with a spoon!” with zero shame-

Vlad was sitting by the shitty card table that served as the dining table in the college apartment he and Jack shared. His eyes were downcast, glaring moodily at the paper in front of him.

Maddie looked at Vlad, her bright fuschia hoops jingling under the fringe of her permed hair. “Vlad?” Her brows furrowed at the expression on his face “What’s like, wrong?”

Vlad had sighed, holding up the paper so that Maddie could see the bright red “C” written at the top of the paper.

“Aww Vlad.” Maddie put a hand on his shoulder “That’s like, not even that bad! You still passed didn’t you?”

Vlad lowered the paper, resting a cheek on a fist moodily. “...Dad will totally like, kill me…”

Maddie had just hummed, rubbing his shoulder slightly.   
  


 

Maddie, Jack and Vlad were all sitting around the card table that served as Vlad and Jack’s dining table in their dorm apartment. Dice, character sheets and a half-eaten box of pizza were all littered across the table. Maddie sat at one end of the table, a small cardboard screen keeping Jack and Vlad from seeing her notes, a dungeon master has to keep some things secret! She wore a star patterned piece of felt around her shoulders as a homemade cape. Vlad was wearing a dark purple wizard’s hat for his sorcerer costume. Jack was wearing a plastic bull horn helmet he had stolen from a Vikings fan at a football game as his costume for his barbarian.

“At the end of the tunnel!” Maddie waved her hands around in a ‘mystical way’ “You like, totally see like, the minotaur!” she drummed against the table “And it is like- TOTALLY GUARDING THE GOLD!”

Jack and Vlad gasped.

Jack grinned, picking up his D20 “I roll to attack!”

“What no!” Vlad’s eyes went wide “We aren’t nearly high enough level to-”

“I’m still attacking!” Jack grinned, releasing his dice “17!”

Maddie smiled, picking up her own dice to roll for the creature “alright! Combat has been initiated!”

Vlad slumped against his seat wearily. “...I hate you...we’re SO going to die!”   
  


 

Another time Maddie had come to visit Vlad and Jack’s only to pause at the door, the muffled sound of Bon Jovi playing through the thin door. She opened the door, Jack was in the kitchen, a concerned look on his face.

“Hey Jack?” Maddie had turned to him “What’s the 411?”

Jack had only sighed, sprinkling a bit of cinnamon into his coffee before taking a sip, running a hand through his mullet “I don’t know Maddie, he’s in a hellacious mood... won’t say a word…” Jack’s shoulders had hunched up then, anxious and worried. He had never been good at handling people when they were down, especially not back then.

“Want me to talk with him?” Maddie offered.

Jack smiled gratefully “That would be like, rad of you Mads.”

Maddie had leaned on Vlad’s door, listening to the music of his record player through the thin wood.

[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrZHPOeOxQQ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrZHPOeOxQQ)

“Shot through the heart! And you’re to blame!” Maddie rolled her eyes. So it’s THAT kinda problem huh? She gently pushed on the door.

Vlad had been upside-down on the bed, his mullet spreading messily on the un-made bed, he had dark smudges under his eyes and a sour look on his face as he moodily mouthed along the the words.

“Vlad?” Maddie had asked, tapping gently into the room.

Vlad’s eyes widened when he saw her pink leggings. “Maddie!” He had struggled upright, panicked “What are you doing here I-” 

Vlad reached for his record player to pause it but Maddie stopped him. “No keep it on, I like Bon Jovi…”

Maddie sat next to Vlad on his bed, humming happily along to the song, Vlad stiff and awkward next to her. Maddie bumped shoulders with him. “You should really invest in a boombox…” She joked.

Vlad’s brows furrowed “...I like Vinyl…”

Maddie rolled her eyes “Whatever dude…” teasing him companionably and coaxing a small smile out of Vlad.

Vlad’s eyes were downcast, he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “H-hey Maddie?”

Maddie turned back to him with a smile “Yeah Vlad?”

_ Shot through the heart and you’re to blame _

Vlad glanced at her but sighed and looked away again. “...nothing…”   
  


 

Maddie stood on the other side of the door, watching Vlad through the peephole. Her stomach felt like a rock. There was a time, long ago that Vlad was a good friend of hers as well. When Vlad had gone to the hospital, cutting Jack and therefore Maddie out of his life, it had hurt. She had been glad to see him after all those years until she realized that he had become warped and bitter, thinking himself above her friendship and instead entitled to her love.

Whether she wanted to or not.

Vlad sighed and knocked his forehead against the wood of the door. “Maddie I-” Suddenly Vlad was knocked off kilter as the door swung open violently. Vlad’s breath was knocked out of him as he landed harshly on the floor next to Maddie’s feet.

Maddie glared down at him, her mouth set in a harsh line. “Ten minutes.” She warned.

Vlad looked up at her from where he was on the ground halfway into the house, his hand reaching back to rub where his head hat hit against the hardwood. “...ten minutes…” He agreed.   
  


 

Vlad sat at the kitchen table awkwardly. He looked at the slightly chipped wooden table, the microwave, his hands that were shaking slightly, anywhere but Maddie. Maddie was leaning against the counter in the kitchen, a coffee cup in one hand, watching him expectantly. He honestly didn’t think he would get this far. He had spent the entire night with a bottle of wine trying to think of what he would say to her. 

“Hey Maddie, you know how I thought I was in love with you for all these years and tried to kill your husband? Yeah sorry about that.”

“Hey Maddie? About that whole trying to steal you away thing? A ghostly deity in the ghost zone showed me I was being a dick about that. No hard feelings?”

Vlad picked at his nails. He rubbed his forehead. “Maddie I-”

Maddie arched an eyebrow at him, once again taking stock of the dark circles under his eyes, the smell that clung to his turtleneck... “Vlad… are you hungover right now?”

Vlad startled at that. “What?” He sat up straighter, coughing into a fist. He tried to smooth down his turtleneck “I can assure you that I am in no way-”

Maddie gave him a flat look.

Vlad sighed, once again looking away “...yes…” He admitted quietly.

Maddie sighed, looking over at the coffee pot over her own cup of coffee ruefully. “I’m afraid I took the last of the coffee before you came. I was about to make another pot anyways…” She turned to the cabinet, pulling out the coffee grinds, a resigned look on her face.

“I uh…” Vlad coughed, relieved to not have her eyes on him “That’s too kind, thank you…”

Maddie looked over her shoulder at him. “You’re right it IS too kind…  _ especially _ after everything you’ve done…”

Vlad turned away from her, a cold pit of shame forming at the bottom of his stomach. “Maddie I-”

Maddie whirled to face him, slamming the jar of coffee grounds harshly onto the table between them, her teeth bared in a snarl “WHAT?” She demanded “WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY SAY TO ME TO MAKE THIS BETTER?”

Vlad flinched back, unwilling to meet her eyes.

“Oh Maddie!” Maddie continued, mimicking Vlad’s voice in a mocking way. She angrily scooped coffee grounds into the filter of the coffee pot “I’m SO SORRY about trying to break up your family! My bad! Whoopsies!”

Maddie slammed the coffee pot violently down into the sink so harshly that Vlad was half afraid that she would break it. She turned on the water in the sink, her shoulders an angry line of tension. “NOT TO MENTION THE FACT-” Maddie growled and brought the full coffee pot to the coffee maker, pouring the water in as angrily as she could. “THAT NOT ONLY DID YOU TRY TO BREAK UP MY LIFE-”

Maddie poked the “brew” button on the coffee pot with as much indignant enraged ferver as if she was poking out Vlad’s eye. “I TOLD YOU I WAS HAPPY! I TOLD YOU THAT I LOVED MY FAMILY! BUT DID YOU CARE ABOUT WHAT I WANTED?”

Maddie slapped a full coffee cup onto the table in front of Vlad, some of the cup spilling out with the force. “NO! YOU NEVER CARED ABOUT WHAT I WANTED! YOU JUST-”

“I KNOW!” Vlad yelled back, slamming his hands onto the table. At Maddie’s shocked expression he looked away, drawing back his hands “I mean...I know.” he repeated, quieter this time. He glanced at Maddie before looking down at his hands. “...I know…”

Maddie crossed her arms. “...just… what did you come here to say?”

Vlad took the coffee cup, looking down into the dark brown liquid. He stumbled over his words for a moment.  “...have you ever heard of the Dumbo principle?” he asked quietly.

Maddie paused, her eyes searching. “...I can’t say I have…” she admitted quietly, unsure of where this was going.

Vlad sighed. “It is a principle in psychology so named after the Disney movie.” Vlad took a sip of coffee, taking a paper towel off of the roll in the kitchen to wipe up what had spilled “The dumbo principle states that no matter how terrible someone is, they still think that they are the hero of their story…”

Maddie snorted, taking a sip of coffee “In other words everyone thinks they’re Dumbo…”

Vlad nodded, grimacing at his reflection in his coffee cup “Exactly…” His lips thinned. There was a long pause before Vlad continued “...I thought he did it on purpose…” He admitted quietly.

Maddie’s eyes widened “What? It was an accident! How could you think that he would ever-”

Vlad raised a hand to stop her “Let me finish! I thought he did it on purpose, that I was the hero of the story and what I did was eventually going to be justified by saving you.” Vlad grimaced “...wow that sounds even more pathetic now that I’ve said it out loud…” 

He sighed. “I have also been forced to come face-to-face with the undeniable truth that what he did really wasn’t on purpose, that you never needed saving and that I’m not…” Vlad groaned and rubbed a hand across his tired eyes “I’m not the hero of this story… I’m not dumbo…”

“Well if it makes you feel better…”Maddie sat down on the other side of the kitchen table “You may not be Dumbo, but you are still just plain ol’ dumb…” She joked, managing to startle out a laugh from Vlad.

Maddie looked pensively down into her own coffee cup. “...you do know that he didn’t-”

Vlad sighed. “Once I let go of how angry I was at him and really looked at it...I know that he wouldn’t...COULDN’T do something like that…”

Maddie hummed, smiling fondly. “He doesn’t have a cruel or vindictive bone in his body…”

Vlad couldn’t help but feel a stab to the heart. Of course that’s why she loved Jack.

That’s why he had been friends with Jack…

“...yeah…” Vlad quietly agreed. “I spent so long thinking that way and now…” Vlad looked out the kitchen window, his cheek resting tiredly on his hand “...I don’t want to be this way, but I don’t know how else to be…”

Maddie could see how tired he was, the dark circles and the messy grey hair. For once he was just a man without a plan.

“Step one.” Maddie offered, setting her coffee cup down gently “Stop being an asshole.”

Vlad huffed out a laugh. “...noted...and I’m...trying…”

Maddie gave him a look. “Vlad…. What you did was…” She looked into her coffee cup. “It was terrible and…”

Vlad had expected this. He really had but even with her saying it out loud it was more painful than he had expe-

“I may not be able to forgive you yet…” Maddie looked up at Vlad “But if you’re really serious about trying to be something else...I might be able to manage it…”

Vlad was honestly touched. He gave Maddie a small lopsided smile. “I...thank you…”

Maddie picked up her coffee cup, glaring at him from over the rim. “Though I’m warning you, If you try anything…”

Vlad put up his hands. “I won’t...I’m really trying this time…”

Maddie studied him from over the rim of her coffee cup. There was something different about Vlad this time. Something happened to him, something finally got through his thick skull.

This time, oddly enough she believed him.

“So…” Maddie started conversationally, averting her eyes in favor of looking down into her coffee “Are you going to try to talk with Jack today?”

Vlad snorted, taking his coffee cup and drinking draining it in one go. “I think I should wait until I’m a little more sober, without the hangover headache before I attempt that.”

Maddie hummed. She loved her husband dearly but she admitted that he was a bit...louder than necessary... “That’s probably for the best.”

Vlad set down his coffee cup “I need time to best figure out how to approach the issue, the best time to bring it up and-”

“Honey muffin!” Jack stumbled into the kitchen, patting the pockets of his jump suit, his reading glasses perched on the top of his head “Have you seen my reading glasses I-”

Jack looked up his eyes widening and a grin spreading across his face.

Vlad stiffened, a rabbit sighted by the bear.

“VLADDIE!” Jack thundered his way into the kitchen, picking up both Vlad and the chair he was sitting on in one giant over enthusiastic hug.

Jack squeezed Vlad the same way a toddler squeeze hugs a cat. We’ve all seen a cat being picked up by a toddler in a way that makes it plainly obvious that the child in their enthusiastic love, has forgotten or simply doesn't realize. that unlike a teddy bear, the cat has organs and can feel pain.

Vlad wheezed in Jack’s arms, trying to claw his way out. “JACK!” Vlad wheezed “LET ME -hnk- GO YOU BIG OAF!”

Jack gave Vlad one last squeeze before setting Vlad and the chair down. “VLAD!” He patted the still recovering Vlad roughly on the back “You didn’t tell me you were coming over!"

Vlad coughed, vaguely certain that Jack had squeezed him hard enough to rearrange organs “No I-” He ran a hand through his hair “I was just- I just-”

“Vlad and I….” Maddie cut in “We uh… we had something to discuss…”

“Yes and-” Vlad stood up suddenly, making the chair squeak behind him “Now that we’ve discussed it It’s time for me to be leaving!”

Jack pouted, tapping two gloved fingers together “Awww… at least stay for dinner!” Jack snapped his fingers “You can help me with a dodad I’ve been working on! I tell ya Vladdie it’s been one heck of a doozy and-”

Vlad rubbed a hand down his tired face as Jack continued to prattle on. “...I’m either not sober enough, or too sober to handle this right now…”

Jack paused his rambling. He blinked, cocking his head at Vlad. “ehhh… what was that Vladdie?”

Vlad turned away, shooing Jack off “Jack I can’t handle this right now. I swear I’ll talk to you later but-”

Jack’s brows furrowed “Vladdie? What can’t you handle I-”[

Maddie grimaced. Jack never was good at reading ques. “Jack.” She soothed “Just let him-”

Vlad whirled to face Jack, his hair loose and his mouth upturned in a snarl. “YOU JACK! I CAN’T HANDLE YOU RIGHT NOW!”

Jack was taken aback. His shoulders sagged. “Are...are you mad at me?” He asked almost quietly.

Vlad threw up his hands “YES!” He screamed, just barely restraining an energy glow from his hands “YES IM MAD AT YOU! I’VE BEEN MAD AT YOU FOR TWENTY GODDAMN YEARS!”

Jack’s eyes were wide, looking down at the smaller man who paced angrily in front of him.

“I THOUGHT YOU DID IT ON PURPOSE!” Vlad tore at his hair “ALL THESE YEARS I CONVINCED MYSELF YOU DID IT ON PURPOSE! HAD ME HOSPITALIZED ON PURPOSE! I HATED YOU! I SCHEMED AGAINST YOU!” Vlad growled and banged his head on the kitchen wall “BUT IT WAS LIKE PLAYING CHESS AGAINST A PIGEON! HOW DID I EVER THINK YOU PLANNED FOR THE ACCIDENT TO HAPPEN? YOU-YOU-” Vlad banged his head against the wall again, a pained look on his face, unable to get the words out after his outburst.

Jack leaned down to try and get a look at Vlad’s face. His brows were furrowed and he was uncharacteristically quiet. “...hey Vlad?” He whispered, fiddling nervously with his hands.

Vlad sighed, a stray lock of grey hair moving with the breath. “...what.”

Jack looked earnestly down at Vlad. “...It was an accident…”

Vlad sighed again, closing his eyes resolutely. “...I know…”

Jack leaned down further, hunching a bit  so that he was level with Vlad. “...do you still hate me?” He asked quietly.

Vlad paused. There was a headache blooming behind his eyes, throbbing there. He let out a breath. “...no…”

Jack straightened up with a smile “Good!” He gripped Vlad by the shoulders and turned the other man to face him “How about we just…” Jack shrugged “Start over then!”

Vlad stared up at Jack, disbelief written all over his face. “...start over?”

Jack nodded, his hands on his hips. “Sure! I’ll turn around and we’ll shake hands like it’s the first time we’ve met since college!”

Vlad shook his head “Jack you really can’t think that it’s just that si-”

Jack turned around, spinning in a complete 360 to face Vlad again. He put his hands to his cheek in false shock “VLAD MASTERS? WHAT A SURPRISE SEEING YOU HERE IN MY KITCHEN FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE COLLEGE!” Jack motioned vaguely at Vlad. “Ok now you go.” He urged.

Vlad scoffed “You can’t be serious. It can’t possibly be that simple y-”

Jack shook his head. “No see you’re doing it wrong. First time meeting. Like this!” Jack turned around again, facing Vlad again. He put his hand to his chest as if in shock “VLAD MASTERS! AFTER ALL THIS TIME WHAT A SURPRISE! HOW YA BEEN?”

Vlad watched, dumbfounded. “You can’t just- I’ve schemed against you! I’ve- I’ve- If you knew the half of it you would HATE ME! You should be angry! You should be yelling! You should-”

Jack shook his head “Nope still wrong.” He turned away from Vlad “I’m just going to keep doing this until we have a fresh start!” He turned to face Vlad again, false shock written all over his face. He held a hand to his forehead like a damsel about to swoon “VLAD MASTERS? WHY WHAT A COINCIDENCE! HERE! IN MY OWN KITCHEN!” He held out a hand for Vlad to shake “HOW YA BEEN BUDDY?”

Vlad stared at Jack, at the hand Jack held out for him.

An incredulous chortle burbled up from Vlad’s chest, escaping with a huff of breath. Vlad laughed. He laughed, harder and harder until he was almost doubled over with laughter, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. “You can’t-” He wheezed between laughs “You can’t just-”

Jack’s grin only widened. He held his hand out more insistently “I can! I can just!” He smiled at him “And I will!”

Vlad was still laughing, quieter now, tears rolling down his cheeks. These last two days had been a roller coaster of emotions, what the hell was even happening anymore?

“You know what?...” Vlad chuckled, scrubbing at a cheek with the sleeve of his sweater. “Sure…” He took Jack’s hand.

Jack grinned, pumping Vlad’s hand up and down. “THEN I DECLARE THIS START A FRESH ONE!”

Vlad snorted “You’re an idiot.” He wheezed and for the first time in twenty years the statement didn’t have its usual harsh bite to it, this time it seemed...fond.

“SO!” Jack smiled, putting his hands to his hips. He peered down at Vlad “How would you like to start the fresh start?”

Vlad’s smile faded. “Uh…” He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. He turned away from Jack “I have no idea… I’ve been like this for so long…”

Vlad thought about his schemes, his plans for domination. He...he wasted twenty goddamn years…

Jack snapped his fingers “I know!” He grinned down at Vlad “How about we start where we left off!”

Vlad’s brows furrowed “What like… go back to the hospital or-”

Jack was already jogging past Vlad though. He ran to the hallway closet, digging through boxes, opening them and throwing them haphazardly across the floor.

Vlad glanced at Maddie. Maddie shrugged her shoulders.

Jack held up a cardboard box triumphantly “AH HA!” He yelled triumphantly. “FOUND IT!”

Vlad shook his head “Found what I-”

Before Vlad could finish that statement he was scooped up by Jack, bent into a sitting position and set down in one of the kitchen chairs. A purple wizard hat was set squarely on his head. Maddie was similarly scooped up, set down one one of the chairs and a felt blanket tied around her shoulders. He unfolded the Dungeon Master’s screen  and set it up in front of her.

Jack handed his wife a notebook. “I swear I never looked at it! Scout’s honor!”

Maddie opened the notebook. “This was...this was my dungeon master’s notebook.” She traced where she had doodled a lightning bolt in the margins with a finger “Jack you-”

Jack handed Vlad a bundle of papers.

Vlad looked down at the bundle, pushing up the brim of the purple wizard hat Jack had set on him to see better, his own messy handwriting littering the page, his character drawn poorly in the corner. “You… you kept my character sheet?”

Jack sat down. Finally he pulled the plastic bull horn helmet and placed it on his head. The final piece was in place. He looked expectantly at his wife.

Maddie blinked. She looked at Vlad.

Vlad looked at Maddie.

Jack urged Maddie on with a wave of his hand “We were in the dungeon!” He turned to Vlad and grinned “We were trying to find our way out!”

Vlad looked down at his character sheet, slightly crinkled, the pages yellowed a bit from age.

He kept it.

All these years he kept it…

Silently, words began to appear across the margin of the paper, as if an invisible hand was writing them. He recognized the proud and looping script from all the scrolls he received from the deity of truth.

“He missed you.” they told him quietly.

Maddie blinked. She looked to Vlad and back to Jack.

Vlad looked from Jack and back to Maddie.

“Uh…” Maddie cleared her throat, looking down to her notebook for guidance. “You’re in the dungeon of the minotaur, you see three tunnels branching out in front of you…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! please comment if you enjoyed! Comments help keep the gal motivated and the gears turnin! If you like how I write and also enjoy either Marvel or Homestuck consider giving my other stuff a read!
> 
> always up for questions/comments/constructive criticisms!


	3. Blue butt the wizard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny, Sam and Tucker, Suspicious of Vlad's intentions, join the campaign.
> 
> Shenanigans ensue.

Danny floated intangibly, if he wasn’t invisible at the moment, you would be able to see the grim set to his lips and the tired smudges under his eyes, he held Tucker and Sam in either arm, as they flew towards the “Fenton works” home and laboratory. Tonight’s battle had been a hard one and he was eager to take a shower before thoroughly ignoring his english homework and passing out. He set Tucker and Sam down on the concrete gently, turning them all visible once more. He phased into his normal human form, visible and solid he opened the front door of his house.

Danny’s shoulders ached, having gained a few bruises from his run in with Skulker. He rubbed them irritably. Sometimes being a hero sucks.

“Ugh” Sam whispered to the other two. Danny couldn’t remember if her eyeliner started out as dramatic as it was right now, or if she smudged it in the fight “There's ectoplasm in my HAIR.” She growled and picked at the green sludge, flicking it off her fingers. When they didn’t work she resorted to wiping it rudely across the wall. “Next time Skulker shows his ugly face in this dimension he’s going to get one of my boots straight up his ASS.”

Tucker shrugged, pulling off his boots at the front door. The sleeves of his usual yellow shirt were a tad singed from that thing he did with the Ghost zapper ™, but he was overall in a chipper mood, obviously pleased with himself after the night’s shenanigans. The look on Skulker’s face had been priceless. PRICELESS! “Hey Danny do you think your mom has anymore of those cookies?” He looked up at Danny hopefully “You know the ones with the peanut butter swirl? Ghost fighting really brings out the appetite and-”

Danny paused in the front entrance of his home, letting Tucker’s cheerful chatter go in one ear and out the other. Something was setting off his hero instincts. It was like the moment before Skulker engaged a trap, the second Ember took a breath before she sang, When freakshow raised his staff, when Vlad stepped out of the shadows with a dark chuckle and a smile on his lips.

No, something wasn’t right.

Danny put out a hand to stop Tucker from walking forward, a small puff of blue breath escaped Danny’s lips, confirming his worst suspicions. “There’s another ghost here….”

“TAKE THAT YOU STUPID OAF!” Vlad’s voice echoed through the front hall, all three teenagers stiffening with the sound, their eyes widening with shock and fear “HAHA! TASTE MY WRATH!!”

Danny’s eyes were wide with panic “Dad!” He took off running towards the kitchen, his fists glowing with green ghostly energy, Sam and Tucker following closely behind him, all three wearing matching looks of horror and determination.

Vlad was here! He was here and tearing his father limb from limb!

Danny burst into the kitchen and-

“And with that!” Maddie announced gleefully, clapping and wearing a star patterned felt blanket around her shoulders “The goblin assassin is dead!” She tipped over a figure on the map in front of them with the air of joyous ceremony.

“YES!” Jack stood up from his chair, bumping the table as he went and knocking over the other figures, a little barbarian and a little wizard “WHO WON? WE DID! OH YEAH!”

Maddie pointed to Vlad who was smirking, leaning back in his chair like the cat who got the cream. “Ok since you got the last blow add another talley to your kill count.”

Vlad smiled, making a mark at the top of the page with a vicious sort of glee. “HAHA! Another glorious victory!!”

Danny put his fists behind his back quickly, willing away the ghostly glow. “...hey mom? Dad?”

Maddie and Jack turned to Danny. Maddie smiled “Oh hi honey!” She waved cheerfully “Welcome home!” She peered over Danny’s shoulder at his two friends who were currently staring daggers at Vlad “Oh, and hi Sam! Hi Tucker! There’s some peanut butter swirl cookies if you’d like some!”

Tucker perked up at that “Sweet thanks Mrs.Fenton!” He veered off to the side of the kitchen to ransack the cookie jar, leaving only Danny and Sam to scowl at Vlad.

Danny scowled at Vlad, confusion written all over his face. Vlad glared back at him, the effect somewhat ruined by the purple wizard’s hat he was wearing. “Why the hell is VLAD here?” Danny motioned forcefully at the older man. He glared down at the older man, arching a brow “Shouldn’t you be at home alone with your cat?”

Jack sat back down, adjusting his plastic barbarian helmet. “Why he’s helping me slay goblins of course! We’re on a mission to save the beautiful elven princess from the evil Lady Katotohanan’s dungeon!”

Vlad’s eyes narrowed, deep in calculating thought “The goblin said she was locked in a tower before he died…”

Vlad’s glowered, stroking his beard thoughtfully. Danny was familiar with the gesture, having a front row seat to most of Vlad’s villainous escapades, but the presence of the wizard hat, his parents, and the fact that this was all over a fake goblin in a fake dungeon, made it almost surreal.

Vlad looked up at Maddie “Nice touch by the way, makes it feel more mythical.”

Actually scratch that, it was totally surreal. Who the hell let this old fruitloop in his house? And why hasn’t his mom torn him to shreds yet?

“Thank you.” Maddie smiled at Vlad, proud of her world building. She hadn’t realized how much she missed having this creative outlet. She put her hands on her hips and glared at Vlad half-heartedly “But do you really have to interrogate ALL my monsters? The thing with the fire blast  was a bit… unnecessary...You would have found out anyways.”

Vlad looked back at her, his hands on his hips. “That is what the intimidation skill set is FOR my dear Madeline. So yes, yes it was necessary.”

Maddie rolled her eyes.

Danny looked at his mom, the blanket around her shoulders, to his dad, the Viking helmet on his head, Vlad and his wizard hat. The table was littered with dice, half eaten bags of snacks and various scribbled on papers “Would anyone PLEASE tell me what’s going on here?”

Jack opened his mouth, but before he could speak Danny stopped him with a hand “And no, nothing about princesses, or evil dungeon lords, or goblins. I mean what is actually PHYSICALLY happening in this kitchen?”

Jack closed his mouth.

Tucker turned back to the group, his pockets stuffed full of homemade peanut butter swirl cookies, one sticking halfway out of his mouth. He chewed the cookie thoughtfully, eyeing the kitchen table “Oh hey! Mr. Fenton, Mrs. Fenton!” Tucker greeted, spraying crumbs as he spoke with the cookie in his mouth “I didn’t know you guys were DND nerds!” He turned to Vlad, one brow furrowed with confusion “Wait… is that a wizard’s hat?”

Danny scowled at Vlad. “DND?”

Tucker poked the plush velvet of the wizard’s hat. The thick velvet crinkled slightly under the touch “Yeah Dungeons and dragons, the ultimate nerd game.”

Vlad batted Tucker’s hand away from his hat before putting his hands on his hips indignantly “I will have you know that Dungeons and Dragons is no mere ‘nerd game’, it is the ultimate test of skill, persuasion, luck, strategy, storytelling, finesse and-”

“Both of you are still covered in goblin blood by the way.” Maddie reminded them “thanks to Vlad’s… creative way of killing creatures..” Maddie grimaced, a shiver running down her spine. That poor fake goblin. “Covered in blood in a dungeon filled with man eating monsters probably isn’t the best idea, what are you going to do about that?”

Jack considered this for a moment. “I know!” He slammed a fist into an open palm “I’m going to lick it!”

Vlad turned back to him, his brows drawn in a grimace “Jack I have a conjure water spell why would y-”

“STILL LICKING IT!” Jack announced.

Maddie sighed, rubbing her temple “...roll a constitution saving throw….” She grimaced at her husband “You know… to resist being POISONED.”

“Ah yes.” Sam teased where she was leaning against the wall of the kitchen with a smirk “Nice strategy and finesse ya got there.”

Vlad cast a dark glare in her direction, the effect of which was ,once again, ruined by the purple wizard hat.

As a general rule, it is extremely difficult to take anyone seriously when they wear a wizard’s hat and Vlad was no exception. It was like a doberman wearing a fez, he could tear you in half, but you would still be laughing at them when it did.

With Vlad distracted, Danny leaned over Vlad’s shoulder, glancing at his character sheet curiously. A wide grin spread across his face and he barely stifled a snort. “Wait is that-”

Vlad whipped his head around in a panic, he tried pull his character sheet away from Danny, but Tucker pulled the sheet off the table from the other direction. Vlad tried to grab at him but missed, his eyes wide with panic as he reached after the sheet “Wait no-”

All three teens gathered around the bundle of paper, barely stifling their snickers as they looked down at the character sheet. The paper was slightly stained and yellowed from age, but there in the corner unmistakably-

The character that Vlad had drawn over twenty years ago in the corner of his character sheet was a drow sorcerer. They had blue skin, pointy ears and were rocking a black shaggy mullet that had been popular at the time. They were wearing a white tunic, a white cape and a large purple wizard’s hat. Due to either college-aged Vlad’s humor, or maybe his limited drawing skills, the character seemed to be screaming, their mouth open and full of oversized jagged fangs, as they shot laser beams out of their hands.

It also looked remarkably like-

Danny stifled a laugh, his eyes filling with tears and his face reddening with the effort. “Hey guys, does this uh… does this look like-”

Sam snorted, her hands clasped over her mouth as her shoulders “Oh my god! It totally does!”

It was a bad, vaguely 80s anime, graphite drawing of what looked unmistakably like Plasmius, Vlad Master’s real-life villainous alter-ego.

The jig was up.

Vlad was a dork.

Tucker was grinning, little hissing laughs escaping his lips “L-look at the name you guys. LORD PLASMIUS.”

“LORD PLASMIUS?” Danny crowed, putting a hand to his face as he wheezed with laughter “Are you serious?”

Vlad looked straight ahead, his shoulders hunched and his lips set in a firm scowl. It was an expression that would have been terrifying if not for once again, the purple wizard’s hat ruining the effect.

Jack turned to his wife, both visibly confused “I don’t get it.” Jack mused “What about Vladdie’s character sheet from college is so funny?”

This startled a loud laugh out of Danny “COLLEGE? THIS WAS FROM COLLEGE?”

Tucker laughed harder “That means - oh my gosh that means-”

Same leaned in towards Vlad, a wide vicious cheshire grin on her face as she leaned in under the brim of the Wizard’s hat. “Did you… Did you pattern your entire villain persona off of your DND character in college?”

Vlad glared back at her icily.

To tell the truth Vlad himself wasn’t entirely sure. He had been in the hospital for years, his insides dissolving and remaking themselves with ghostly energy, his skin burning, in strict quarantine in case whatever he had contracted was contagious. Most of this time had been spent in pain, bitter and lonely. When he had realized his new abilities, he created a new persona under which to steal the startup money that would eventually become his empire. He hadn’t really examined fully where he had come up with the idea for Plasmius but-

Looking down at his own character sheet, the blue skin, the fangs, the tunic and cape... A sense of dark crawling horror sank deep within his gut, maybe…

Maybe he did.

At least he didn’t include the Wizard’s hat.

College Vlad may have been stupid but he hadn’t been an idiot.

Watching a group of teenagers laughing at him, one of which he considered to be his arch nemesis of sorts, over the fact that he based his villain persona off of the level 8 drow Sorcerer character he had played DND as in college- Vlad decided that this was the absolute worst day of his life.

Or at least top 4.

Vlad crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair “Yes yes, go ahead- laugh yourselves silly!” He turned away haughtily. “Maddie where we before these three so rudely interrupted?”

Maddie rolled some dice behind her DM screen with a sigh. “Jack was just about to get 4 hp damage from licking goblin blood.”

“It was worth it!” Jack chirped, dutifully taking the damage down on his character sheet.

Vlad and Maddie rolled their eyes.

Danny surveyed the scene before him. He didn’t know why Vlad was playing nice all of a sudden. Vlad wasn’t the type to play nice and despite the dorky trappings of DND, this might be part of some sort of plan on Vlad’s part, either to woo his mom, or kill his dad.

Or most likely- both.

Danny smiled at Vlad, the beginnings of a plan forming in his mind. So Vlad wanted to play games huh? Well two can play that game, or er, the game of playing a game? Danny struggled to come up with the right word for it in his mind.

The game of playing a nefarious game, that WASN’T DND. The game of playing DND as part of a longer more insidious game that-

He shook his head to stop that train of thought. He’ll figure out Vlad’s ga- or er, plan eventually.

Danny pulled out one of the  kitchen table chairs. “Hey mom?” He asked, not breaking eye contact with Vlad, a shit eating grin across his face. “Can I play?”

“What?” Vlad asked incredulously, the knot of horror in his stomach only worsening, “Why would y-”

“Me too Mrs. Fenton.” Sam pulled out the chair next to Danny’s, smirking widely at Vlad, resting her chin on her clasped hands and kicking her feet out under the table “I think I would like to be here for this.”

Vlad, still slightly hungover and a nervous ball of energy in an ill fitting purple wizard’s hat, decided that once and for all, these children were the actual WORST.

Tucker, not quite seeming to understand the unspoken agreement between Danny and Sam to play in order to spy on Vlad, was honestly delighted. “Woo!” He pulled out a chair and sat eagerly, grinning at Maddie. “I usually play a bard!” he gushed.

Maddie considered him “...yeah… you seem the type. What kind?”

Tucker smiled “Healer usually.”

Maddie smiled at him. “Oh! That’s good! We need a healer!”

Vlad glared back at the teenagers “We’ve been doing FINE without a healer.”

“Do you think...” Jack said absentmindedly as he considered the map of the dungeon in front of him, his plastic barbarian helmet knocked slightly askew “If I light myself on fire… The goblins can’t get me right?” He gasped, clutching a fist dramatically, obviously impressed with this solution “Goblins can’t catch you if you’re on FIRE!”

Vlad sighed inwardly.

Danny smiled, resting his elbows on the table and smiling cheekily at Vlad, mirroring Sam eerily. “I guess we’re joining the team!”  
  


 

Danny, Sam and Tucker were sitting at one side of the Fenton kitchen table. Sam and Danny were smirking smugly at Vlad, Vlad glowering back at them. Tucker kicked his feet happily, excited to be playing DND.

Maddie dumped a couple of Dungeons and dragons books on the kitchen table. “Alright here is the player handbooks.” She leaned back to yell into the hallway “Jack are you coming?”

“Yes honey!” Jack came trudging onto the room, his arms full of books “I have the monster compendiums, the sample campaigns, the spellbooks and-”

Tucker raised his phone. “I usually just look up the PDF online.”

Maddie blinked “What?”

Tucker waved her off “You can get all the rule books pirated online. Plus premade character builds that are made to be as statistically efficient as possible!” He took out his handheld, typing in a long stream of numbers “See each ability score increase or decrease changes the odds of a hit by 5%, which means that if I take the spells bane or bless I can change the probability of a hit by 5-20%! So if their armor class is 16 or so that means-”

Jack stared blankly at Tucker. “...What?”

Tucker sighed, shaking his head. “It’s ok man.” He patted Jack on the shoulder, shaking his head “Barbarian players just don’t get it.”

Maddie squinted distrustfully at the screen “So it optimizes your character automatically?”

Tucker nodded “Yup?”

She shook her head, huffing out a disbelieving laugh “What about the rules? The weapon classes? The equipment packs?”

Tucker clicked a couple of times, showing Maddie a neat list on his phone “Alphabetized and searchable!”

Maddie threw up her hands “What about DICE then huh?”

Tucker clicked again, a pair of 3D dice rattling on his screen “Virtual!”

Maddie yanked his phone out of his hands “Yes well-” she handed Tucker a paper character sheet, dumping some multi-colored dice in his other hand “We’re a bit old fashioned."

Tucker rolled his eyes, looking disdainfully down at his paper. “Ew.” He grimaced down at the paper “Physical paper character sheets.” He motioned angrily down at it “What are we? Amish?”

Jack seemed struck by the question. “...do Amish people play DND?”

Vlad sighed. “No Jack. Amish people don’t play DND.”

Maddie turned to her son. She considered this to be the perfect opportunity to have some quality mother/kid time. She knew that Danny had been growing away from her lately, but if this game had the potential to bring bring Vlad back into their lives and hopefully un-douche him, then maybe it could help her get closer with Danny again. “So honey!” Maddie started “What would you like to play as?”

Danny blinked, taken off guard from where he had been staring Vlad down. “Uhhh… what?”

Maddie opened the player’s handbook, passing it to Danny. “Well your father is already playing a Barbarian, and Vlad is a sorcerer, Tucker seems dead set on Bard… It depends on what you want to do! You could be a fighter, a monk, a paladin, a-”

Danny flipped through the pages of the player’s handbook absentmindedly as his mother spoke. As he turned the page though something caught his attention, his eyes widening with awe. There illustrated in the player’s handbook was a rough and tumble character with a-

“I can…” Danny looked down at the illustration, a man with a very large wolf-dog. “I can have a dog in this game?”

Maddie sighed “...Yes you can have a dog-” She raised a finger in warning when Danny looked up at her with wide hopeful eyes “IN. THE. GAME.” She pointed down at the illustration “The ranger class can choose an animal companion to fight with.”

Danny seemed in awe of the illustration in the book. He looked up at his mother pointedly. “At least fake me can get a dog.” He squinted angrily at her ”MOM.”

She smiled pointedly at him “Rangers can also get SMALL MANAGEABLE animals like birds, rabbits and hamsters… SON.”

Danny glared at his mom over the DND player’s handbook.

Maddie glared back.

Sam looked over Danny’s shoulder at the player’s handbook. She reached over and flipped a page. “Rogue huh?” She looked down at the illustration of an elvish woman dressed in all black, smirking with a dagger in hand “I like her style.”

Maddie smiled at her, turning away from her staring contest with Danny “Rogues are all about stealth and cunning!”

Sam smiled, her purple eyes glittering. “I like it.”

“How about an elf?” Maddie suggested. “They’re good for rogues.”

Sam pointed to a list of races in the book “What about a DARK ELF? What are those?”

“A drow?” Maddie answered “Vlad is already a drow.”

Sam made a face “Ew no. I don’t want to be like blue butt the wizard.”

Vlad glared at her. “SORCERER.” he hissed.

Sam glared back. “Whatever you say, blue butt.”

Vlad gave her a sarcastic smile.

Sam gave him one back in return.

Maddie smiled at Sam “Ah rogues…” She took back the book, flipping through the rogue section “May I suggest an Arcane trickster? It will allow you to have some limited spells.” She smiled “...Also since we were just talking about animal companions-” She looked at Danny again pointedly “I’ll let you have a SMALL and MANAGEABLE familiar.”

Danny scowled at his mother “I’m still getting a dog.”

Sam looked up at Maddie, her eyes sparkling “c-can I get a raven?”

Maddie nodded amicably “Sure! That’s an option! Though you’ll have to take animal handling as a skill.”

Sam bit her lip, quivering with excitement “How about....A scythe?”

Maddie flipped a couple of pages in the book. “Hmmm… the starting weapons are longswords, short swords, crossbows…” She ran her finger across a long string of numbers. “How about we give it the same stats as a longsword? That way you won’t have an unfair advantage with the damage boost a scythe has, but in game you can call it a scythe?”

Sam looked down at her character sheet, moved almost to tears. “I’ve done it.” She whispered “I’ve achieved PEAK goth.”

“Now!” Maddie looked expectantly at the new players “What are you thinking for backstories?”

Tucker raised a finger to start but-

“I AM LADY RAVEENA.” Same gushed, grinning with dark vicious glee “ORPHANED AS A CHILD! MY PARENTS WERE BRUTALLY MURDERED IN FRONT OF ME BY A BAND OF BLOODTHIRSTY ORCS! THEY BURNED DOWN MY CHILDHOOD HOME BUT FROM THE ASHES I AROSE! SEEKING BLOODY VENGEANCE I JOINED THE GUILD OF ASSASSINS WHO TRAINED ME IN THEIR DARK ARTS! MY RAVEN AS MY COMPANION I WILL NOT REST UNTIL I HAVE THE BLOODY DISMEMBERED HEAD OF THE ORC KING AS RETRIBUTION FOR-”

“I’m The Merry Mister Tuck!” Tucker grinned cheekily, as he shouldered past the still hyperventilating Sam, trying to pull off a charming swagger but not succeeding in the least “I go around singing songs with my magical lute.” He strummed the air in front of him as if it was a lute and began to sing “Throughout the taverns of this land they call me The great Tucker! All the fair maidens here say that I’m a great fu-”

“-My character is me.” Danny announced, interrupting Tucker before he could finish the verse. He turned to his mom, his eyes narrowing. “But with a dog.”

Maddie sighed, rubbing her temple and glaring across the table at her son. “DANNY.” She warned.

Danny sighed, leaning back in his chair “Fine I am Danny...McFreakin-whatever… I am a simple peasant boy that was called to a life of adventure.” He waved his hand and rolled his eyes “Because life does that to you sometimes. Sometimes you’re just a regular peasant boy minding your own business, reading comics and doing peasant boy stuff until BAM! Suddenly you have a hundred more responsibilities which somehow include stopping the tide of evil. All of that is all on YOU, even if you have no idea what to do or how to handle it!”

Vlad, Sam and Tucker were struck by Danny’s sudden and very thinly veiled outburst.

“But with a dog.” Danny finished quietly, crossing his arms.

Maddie sighed, writing their names down in her dungeon Master’s notebook. She tapped the eraser of the pencil to her lips in thought. “....We can fill in more of the details later, but for now I think I have an idea for how to introduce you into the story…”  


 

“Deep in the heart of Katotohanan’s dungeon, our heroes, the powerful sorcerer Lord Plasmius and the great Barbarian Jahackan Bonefist have just survived an encounter with the Evil Lady Katotohanan’s troupe of goblin assassins. After a very…”

Maddie sighed, her lips pressed together in a rueful line.

“...creative way of torturing the head goblin, it was Lord Plasmius who discovered the location of the captured elven princess.”

“You’re welcome.” Vlad told the table smugly, a hand to his chest.

Maddie rolled her eyes and continued. “You had just finished your battle when you heard something from the tunnel to your left. Could there be more prisoners trapped here in Katohanan’s dungeon?”

Jack gasped and clutched a fist, slamming it excitedly to the table and jostling all the figures on the dnd map. “JAHACKAN BONEFIST SHALL HELP THEM!”

Vlad hummed, tapping a finger to his lips. “A sound from the left tunnel?” He put his hands to his cheeks and gasped sarcastically “I wonder if we’ll find the three newest players there?” He crossed his arms defiantly, looking down his nose at the teenagers “I go down the RIGHT tunnel instead.”

Maddie leaned in towards Vlad, her brows drawn and her teeth gritted “I SWEAR Vlad I will drop you down a trap door in the floor and into a pit of lava. Do NOT test me!”

Vlad sighed a look of dark resignation under his purple hat. “....fine I go down the left tunnel.”

Maddie smiled, patting Vlad condescendingly on the head, making the wizard’s hat jingle. “There we go! That wasn’t so hard was it?”

Vlad’s annoyance that Danny and his little troupe of annoying teenagers was melting despite himself. If Danny was so dead set on making Vlad’s life difficult then fine, two can play that game.

The game that was not the game of DND and was actually the game of annoying each other as much as possible until the other one gave in and quit the game! The game that is being played while they play the other game that IS DND!

….

Vlad shook his head, he’ll think of a better name for it later.

“You go down the left tunnel.” Maddie began from behind her DM screen “Just like reasonable people who don’t fight their dungeon master do.” She waved her hands in a ‘mystical’ way “You see three cells lining the wall, a prisoner slumped over in each one…” She waved at Danny, Sam and Tucker “You three wake up in your cells! What do you do?”

Tucker hummed, discontented “How did we get in there? Like were we captured?”

Maddie steepled her fingers “You have amnesia, you don’t know how you got there but you assume you were captured.”

“What?” Danny arched a brow “Why do we have amnesia? Did someone hit us on the head or-”

“Danny.” Maddie warned, her voice low “You have amnesia because I haven’t figured out how you got here yet. Give your mom some slack.”

Danny grimaced “oh...that makes sense.”

“You three!” Jack announced, squaring his shoulders and lowering his voice even further to a gruff and gravely tember “DO YOU REQUIRE ASSISTANCE FROM THE GREAT BARBARIAN JAHACKAN BONEFIST?”

Danny shrugged, still coming to grips with improv “Yeah sure dad that would be cool.”

“DAD?” Jack announced, putting his hands on his hips “WHO IS THIS DAD YOU SPEAKEST OF? I AM THE BARBARIAN JAHACKAN BONEFIST!”

Danny sighed “Are we really going to do this?”

Maddie shrugged “You do have to stay in character.”

Danny rolled his eyes “Fine. Can you help us I-

“I DEMAND TO BE LET OUT OF THIS CELL!” Sam announced “I AM THE LADY RAVEENA! GREAT ASSASSIN DESTINED TO SLAY THE ORC KING AFTER HE BRUTALLY MURDERED MY FAMILY! FROM THE ASHES I-”

“I don't want to be in this cell~” Tucker sang, strumming an imaginary lute “It’s dirty, itchy and hot as h-”

“SO IF YOU COULD PLEASE BE SO KIND!” Danny interrupted Tucker “Let us out of the cell please.”

Jack’s brow furrowed “I charge the cell door!”

Maddie sighed “Make an attack roll…”

Jack tossed his dice, letting it clatter on the table. “Seven! Plus five strength?”

Maddie shook her head “Honey this is a magical dungeon ran by an evil witch, everything is enforced by-”

Jack glared down at the map on the table. “I charge the door again!” He tossed his dice. “Nine!” He announced, looking at Maddie hopefully.

Maddie groaned, rubbing a hand against her temple. “Not only do the bars NOT break you feel a shock of magic go through you like an electric fence.” She tossed a die. “Take five points of damage.”

Jack took the damage dutifully, marking it down on his character sheet. He glared down at the map “I charge the door a-”

“VLAD!” Maddie interrupted, turning to him, a desperate look in her eyes “What are you doing right now?”

Vlad smiled slowly. “I pull out my bag of holding.” He leaned back in his chair “And I take out a lawn chair, a bottle of wine and a glass. I watch Jahackan try to break down the door again.”

Maddie growled. She scribbled a note on a piece of notebook paper, tore out the page and threw it at Vlad. The act of a piece of paper being flung at his head was oddly familiar at this point. He unfurled the note.

“VLAD IF YOU DON’T STOP BEING A DOUCHE THIS VERY MOMENT SO HELP ME!”

Vlad turned to Maddie indignantly. “I’m not being a-”

Another line of looping calligraphy wrote itself at the top of Vlad’s character sheet, unseen by the other people at the table “You totally are.” The script read “I would know.” followed by a tiny little “:)”

Vlad angrily erased the writing with his pencil. He growled to himself and rolled his eyes “Fine. I look for a key.”

Maddie sighed with relief. “Thank you. In the hallway there looks to be what is left of a guard station. There is a wooden table and chairs off to one side away from the cells. There are a couple of skeletal corpses, one sitting in a chair slumped over the table, a couple on the floor, and a couple slumped over against the wall.”

“Hmm…” Vlad stroked his beard again “I assume they were once guards?”

Maddie nodded “They are wearing chainmail and a royal crest you don’t recognize so that’s a fair assumption.”

Vladd nodded “I check their pockets.”

Maddie smiled “Roll a perception check.”

Vlad tossed his dice carefully “...fifteen, plus five skill bonus, so twenty.”

Maddie took note, scribbling something in her notebook. “You find two silver pieces and a key.”

Vlad nodded “Good!”

“So…” Maddie asked “Which cell do you open?”

Vlad sighed “Do I have to open their cells?” He motioned towards the three teens “They’re so nicely contained and not causing any trouble in there!”

“VLAD.” Danny growled.

“VLAD.” Sam hissed.

“VLAD.” Maddie warned.

“Vladdie!” Jack chirped, not quite understanding what was going on, but wanting to be included anyways.

Vlad sighed “Fine. I go to Danny’s cell.” He looked at Danny and smirked “Now say-” He clasped his hands and mimicked Danny’s voice, high and whiny “Thank you ever so much for opening the door, Great Sorcerer Plasmius! I’m ever so grateful!”

Danny glared at him from across the table “Just open the door you old fruitloop.”

Vlad gasped and put a hand to his chest “Is that any way to talk to your rescuer?”

“Open the door NOW, fruitloop!”

Vlad sighed dramatically “Very well, but let the record show that you’re being extremely ungrateful and unreasonable.” He bowed gracefully over the table “I put the key in the lock and turn it, letting out Danny and his slobbery dog companion.”

Danny smiled sarcastically at Vlad. “Now that I’m free, I take the key from blue butt the wizard.”

“SORCERER!” Vlad corrected indignantly “Also you can’t DO THAT!”

Maddie snorted out a laugh “Make a grapple check.”

Danny grinned viciously at Vlad. He turned to his dice and his smile suddenly fell “uh….which one do I-”

“D20 plus your strength modifier.” Maddie informed him.

Danny stared blankly at her.

Maddie sighed. “Roll the big die and add the number in the little box where is says ‘strength’ ok?”

“Oh!” Danny rolled the dice “....14 plus 2 so 16!”

Maddie turned to vlad “Alright! Roll to contest it!”

Vlad grumbled direly, tossing his dice. Stupid Danny taking advantage of his bountiful generosity he-

“Oh no!” Jack laughed, leaning over the table to look at what Vlad rolled “Natural one!”

“OOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” Jack, Maddie and Tucker stood up from the table “NATURAL ONE!”

Vlad seethed where he sat at the table.

Danny looked up at his parents “I don’t get it, what’s a natural one mean?”

Maddie laughed “It’s the worst thing you could roll!”

Tucker pumped his fists “Something ridiculously embarrassing has to happen to Vlad now!”

Sam and Danny also pumped their fists “WOO! NATURAL ONE!”

Vlad hissed something dire, hunching his shoulders testily under his wizard’s hat. Stupid teenagers.

Maddie settled herself down “Vlad obviously fails to stop you from stealing the key from him. He steps on his own cape and trips, smashing his face into the bars of the cell.” Maddie smiled apologetically at Vlad, giggling slightly behind a hand. She tossed a die “Take 3 points of damage.”

Vlad angrily took the damage down on his character sheet.

“HA!” Danny stood up from his seat “TAKE THAT BLUE BUTT!” He smiled at the seething Vlad. “Also, I’m opening Tucker and Sam’s cells.”

Sam grinned “THE LADY RAVEENA OWES YOU A GREAT DEBT!”

Tucker strummed his invisible lute “There once was a wizard with a blue butt, he tripped on his cape and fell on his n-”

“ANYWAYS!” Danny interrupted Tucker “Me and my dog, who I’ve decided is named Cujo, who I love dearly-” He looked at his mom “Are going to go and explore more of the dungeon.”

Maddie smiled “You step out of your cells and a ghostly green glow surrounds the skeletons that had been slumped over the table and across the floor. The eyes of the skeletons begin to glow a ghastly ghostly green! They lumber upright and draw their swords!”

Jack gasped “Undead!”

Maddie smiled “Everyone! Roll initiative!” She turned to Danny “Except for you sweetie, you suddenly fall down a trap door and onto a nice fluffy pillow. There’s a tray of snack to the side. Everyone else prepare for battle!”

Danny huffed “Mom!”

Maddie frowned “I don’t want to see my baby hurt!”

Danny threw up a hand “ But I’ve already fought gh-” He coughed awkwardly into a hand “I mean if I was ever in the situation to fight ghosts, I’m sure I would win!”

Vlad coughed “Barely.”

Danny gave him a glare.

Maddie sighed “Ok, you don’t fall through a trap door…” She frowned slightly not liking to think about her boy fighting.

Maddie suddenly got a look at the clock “Oh dear it’s quite late, we should probably start here next week.”

Sam, Tucker and Danny sighed “aww….”

She put her hands to her hips. “Well it’s a school night, we can’t have you staying up too late. Danny get to bed, Tucker and Sam you can either call a ride or we can drive you home.”

Maddie turned to Vlad. “Can I talk to you for a moment?” she frowned slightly “...alone?”

Sam, Tucker and Danny stared openly.

“Ooooo….” Sam teased, crossing her arms “Vlad is in trouble.”

Maddie gave Jack a look.

Taking the hint, Jack shooed the kids away from the table. “Alright you three!” He tossed Danny over a shoulder and picked up both Sam and Tucker’s chairs, both teenagers still in them “Time to get Danny to bed and you two home!” He shuffled them all out of the kitchen.

Maddie stood up, crossing her arms slightly.

Vlad looked up at her, his head held in a hand “...what?”

Maddie sighed. Her mouth was pressed into a line and she looked at Vlad sadly. “You know… You know that we aren’t against you right?”

Vlad looked up at her. “... I…”

Maddie put a hand on her shoulder “I mean that’s what is so great about DND! We work TOGETHER in order to succeed, there is no us vs. them because we’re all working together for the same goal.”

Vlad sighed, crossing his arms “Try telling your son that.”

Maddie huffed “He’s… well he doesn’t have the same history that we have with you, so he doesn’t know the you that can be-” She shrugged, struggling for the right word “Not a douche I guess? And you aren’t helping on that front either...”

Vlad sighed “...I’m sorry I guess I’m not-” He struggled to find the right word.

“Used to it?” Maddie supplied. “Used to not being combative with literally every other person on the planet?”

Vlad grimaced “I’m not combative with everyone!”

“Lol but u are.” A tiny line of script wrote itself on Vlad’s character sheet. Vlad covered it with a hand before Maddie could see.

Maddie huffed out a laugh “The way you are now even when you’re nice it’s a part of the battle plan. I know you said you didn’t want to be like that anymore and-”

“I don’t!” Vlad blurted before grimacing “...I’m being combative again aren’t I?”

Maddie shrugged “I get it though. You were always kind of like that, even in college.” She shook her head “But you have to keep it in check!” She looked away for a moment, crossing her arms, her voice growing quieter. “...We missed you after it happened you know?”

Vlad was suddenly struck by the admission “Maddie I-”

Maddie huffed out another laugh. “So it would be nice to have you back! We really are rooting for you.” She flicked him lightly on the forehead “So get that through your thick skull and stop being an ass.”

Vlad smiled at her, huffing out a laugh. There was a reason why when he went to the hospital, her memory was what he clinged to. Years of of both mandatory and self imposed isolation had turned her into something she wasn’t in his mind, but the real Maddie Fenton was kind, smart, and much wiser than she had been in college. She was-

She was a good friend.

Vlad really needed one of those right now.

Vlad stood up from his seat, taking off his Wizard hat and setting it on the table. “Thank you Maddie.” He looked down at the kitchen table, dice and papers littering it haphazardly “Thank you for being patient with me, this isn’t easy for me but-” He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck “I’m trying.”

“Thanks Vlad.” Maddie smiled and patted his shoulder “Next week?”

Vlad smiled “Next week.” he agreed.  


 

 

Vlad walked out of the Fenton home and laboratory, the night seemed to yawn out before him, the air cool against his skin. Today had been…

Interesting.

It certainly hadn’t gone the way he had expected, better even than he hoped. He frowned slightly, Danny’s appearance hadn’t helped though. Vlad was, well he was at least TRYING to be nice but he slipped back into being mean and ‘combative’ too easily. He slipped back into mean like a fish into water, completely at home, floundering and uncomfortable with anything else. He had to change though.

He had to.

He had his car keys in his hands, walking over to his car that he had parked badly in front of the Fenton home when he had come earlier in the day, hungover and begging Maddie to forgive him. He was halfway to his car when he noticed Jack unloading equipment from the “Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle” the teenagers were off to the side, waiting for Jack to finish so that they could be driven home.

Vlad’s first instinct was to keep walking, get in his car and drive away... but he was trying to be nice.

He paused, his brows furrowed. What would a nice, normal person do?

Vlad walked gingerly over to the scene, his hands in his pockets. You know, like a nice, normal person. Someone who wasn’t a half ghost that tried to take over the world multiple times. He tried to be nonchalant but probably came off more awkward than anything.

“So….” Vlad started, standing next to the teens who were all firmly ignoring him. He turned to Jack instead “Would you like help getting them home?” He grimaced at the way his own voice came out, squeaky and unsure “I have a...I have a car.” He finished lamely, raising his car keys as if to prove he did in fact, have a car, even though it was in front of all of them. He lowered his hand before he could embarrass himself further.

“Oh Vlad!” Jack grinned “That would be great! You take one and I take the other!” He raised a finger “Just let me get the last of these dohickies out of here!” Something sparked and hissed in his hands as he threw it out onto the sidewalk “These really shouldn’t be in here while it’s moving!”

Danny and the other two finally decided to acknowledge Vlad’s existence. Danny leaned towards Vlad, hissing quietly “What is your GAME Vlad?”

Sam crossed her arms, leaning in to hiss as well “Yeah! What’s your game?”

Vlad blinked innocently, looking up as if in thought, tapping a finger to his lips “Well right now it’s DND.”

Danny shook his head “No what’s your REAL game here?”

Vlad sighed “I know that this is hard to believe but-” He shook his head “Me and your parents were really close in college. I realized that I was ruining something that was more valuable than-” He grimaced slightly “-Than...well you know…”

Danny rolled his eyes. “Yeah right.”

Vlad put his hands on his hips “It’s true!” He motioned vaguely at the three of them “We were like- well we were like your little group!”

He pointed at Danny “You are like your father, the idealist who wasn’t exactly the smartest but-”

Danny growled.

“But!” Vlad continued “ he held the little group together!”

He considered Tucker for a moment “Well you are the only one who seems proficient technically….” He shrugged “So I would say that you’re a Maddie.”

Tucker nodded “Nice.” he turned to Danny and batted his eyes sarcastically, popping up a foot “Ours will be a spring wedding.”

Both Danny and Tucker burst out laughing.

Vlad turned to Sam. He paused, his brows furrowing. “....That makes you the ...oh…”

Sam looked up at him in despair “No!”

Vlad sighed a resigned look on his face “Believe me I don’t like this either.”

Sam threw up her hands “I don’t want to be the YOU!”

Vlad looked down at her critically “It fits though...The standoffish loner with a penchant for the dramatic…”

Sam shook her head “NO. NO. NO. NEVER. NOPE!”

Vlad considered her for a moment, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “...Samantha what would be the first thing you would do if you suddenly got ghost powers?"

Sam seemed struck by the idea “Well…” She grinned a vicious glint in her eyes “I would make sure a couple of people got what was coming to them! Paulina maybe, Dash especially. Then I would go into some corporate offices, you know the kind that pollute the planet and I would overshadow the CEOs to make them change their business plans and-”

Vlad looked smugly down at her.

Sam’s eyes widened. She tore at her hair, suddenly panicked “Oh my GOD! I’M TOTALLY THE VLAD!”

Danny put out his hands “STOP! NOBODY is the Vlad here except for the actual Vlad!” Danny motioned at the older and rolled his eyes “don’t take him seriously, Vlad is completely wrong.” He put his hand to his chest “I mean come on! I’m NOT my dad!”

“Jack.” Vlad turned to where Jack was still unloading the Fenton family ghost assault vehicle “What would you do if you suddenly got ghost powers?”

Jack stood up straight, thinking for a moment. He snapped his fingers “Oh I know!” He flexed his muscles “FIGHT MORE GHOSTS!” He announced triumphantly.

Vlad smirked down at Danny.

“NO!” Danny tore at his hair “I DON’T WANT TO BE MY DAD!”

Jack unloaded the last of the boxes from the Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle. “What? Who doesn’t want to be the what now?”

Vlad waved him off “Nothing Jack, you take Tucker home, I take Sam home?”

Jack gave him a thumbs up. “Sure thing Vladdie!”

Sam climbed into Vlad’s car, a stricken look on her face as she looked despondently out the window.

Vlad wasn’t sure how to deal with this sort of situation. He paused, his fingers drumming against the steering wheel. What would a nice, normal person do in this situation?

“Uh…” Vlad started “are you….alright?”

“NO!” Sam hissed to herself,hunching her shoulders “I DON’T WANT TO BE THE VLAD!” She looked up at Vlad, almost apologetically “er.. No offense.” she grimaced. “...sorry…”

“None taken.” Vlad sighed, looking tired for a moment as he started the car. “Vlad doesn’t want to be the Vlad.”  


 

 

After dropping a despondent Sam off at home Vlad drove back to his own home. The mansion leered over him, empty and lifeless. Vlad had bought the thing as a symbol of power, rich people had big houses as a general rule, but lately Vlad was coming to despise it. He unlocked his front door, thinking about downsizing, something small enough where he didn’t have to think about how alone he was. Somewhere where the occupancy of one man and his cat would be reasonable instead of laughable.

Vlad opened his door and-

The first scroll hit Vlad over the face, whapping against his nose and bouncing to the floor.

“Welcome home Vlad.” Vlad mimicked in a sarcastic, whiney voice “Time for a deity with too much time on their hands to start annoying you.”

Vlad looked down at the scroll, sitting innocently on his hardwood floor with disdain. “What if I just don’t open it?”

A flood of scrolls suddenly began pouring down on Vlad. Vlad yelped as papers upon papers began to fill the room, climbing up his shins, bouncing down his stairs and-

“ALRIGHT!” Vlad sputtered, waving his hands at the ceiling where he was half buried in paper “FINE! I’ll read it!”

With Vlad’s acquiescence the sea of scrolls suddenly vanished, setting Vlad down roughly onto his floor. A single scroll plopped down on his lap.

Vlad sighed “Alright.” He groused “What did you have to tell me that was SO important?”

Vlad opened up the scroll.

“Hey Vlad you’re a douche.” The scroll read, the script elegantly penned and the word ‘douche’ underlined three times.

Vlad sighed “Maddie already told me, thank you.” He waved vaguely “Also Danny was the one who started it!”

Another scroll plopped down on his lap. Vlad unfurled it. “You seriously can’t handle a couple of teenagers poking fun at you?”

Vlad sneered at the ceiling “It’s NOT funny!”

The next scroll whapped him in the face. “Wahhhh!” The scroll read, accompanied by what looked like a badly drawn version of himself, his eyes crossed, buck toothed and an exaggerated frown on the face “I’m Vlad Masters!” the drawing proclaimed “Teenagers made fun of me! WAHHH!”

Vlad huffed “I am NOT like that!”

Another scroll fluttered down to Vlad “You SO are!”

Vlad growled and threw the paper away “I’m TRYING ok!” He growled and tore at his hair “I don’t want to be like this! I know that! I’m trying but-”

Another scroll landed almost shyly in his lap. “....I know…” the script was smaller now. “I guess I’m being a bit harsh on you…”

Vlad rolled his eyes “Oh! You think?”

Another scroll landed on his head “The truth is harsh ok? Truth doesn’t care about feelings, it cares about what is and what isn’t.” another smaller scroll tumbled down. “Personally though….” Vlad scrolled down to the very bottom of the page.

“...I...may or may not be...rooting for you.”

Vlad smiled slightly. He looked up at the ceiling, his head resting in a hand. “Oh so you’re secretly a softie?”

Another scroll whapped him upside the head. “Fuck off Vlad.”

Vlad huffed out a laugh. His face fell. He thumbed the edge of the scroll thoughtfully “...Think I can do this?”

The next scroll landed directly in his hands. “I don’t know.”

Vlad huffed “Neither do I.”

  


As Vlad got ready for bed that night, the house seemed too large, he felt paranoia and loneliness crawling up his spine. When he was younger, before the accident, he might have attributed the feeling to ghosts, but now the certainty that there were no ghosts here, no beings other than him, other than his cat Maddie curled at the foot of the bed, made the feeling worse.

He padded to the media room, pulling a CD from his collection. He let the CD play over the stereo system, echoing through the rooms gently.

[he pressed play](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt2mbGP6vFI&index=43&list=PLCD0445C57F2B7F41)

Vlad went back to bed, picking Maddie up gently. The little cat made a sleepy little ‘Mrr?” Sound before yawning and settling down in Vlad’s arms, purring soundly. Vlad concentrated on the sound, on warm fur under his fingers, slowly lulling him to sleep.

Vlad’s thought was “Maybe I should get another cat. A big one. I’ll name it Jack.” before he fell into a dark dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry it took me a while to update! I have a couple of open fics out! If you liked though please leave a comment! Comments help keep the motor running and the creativity flowing! I hope you liked!
> 
> Also if you ever want to chat about junk and stuff hit me up on tumblr! I have a blog by the same name here!
> 
> Tell me what you thought! I would love to hear your reactions! <3
> 
>  
> 
> poor blue butt the wizard.


	4. DON'T STOP! BELIEVING!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! This is mostly just a flashback chapter for Vlad and how he met Jack and Maddie. There's also Vlad dealing with panic attacks, and a trip to the animal shelter. Shenanigans with Danny and friends when Sam starts acting weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I didn't get to everything I wanted to in this chapter (I've been trying to keep chapters at a steady 25 pages) So I'll have to get to their next session of DND next time, but there should be a lot of laugh moments in this fic as well as some flashbacks of Vlad's life and how he met Jack and Maddie.
> 
> Enjoy!

[Vlad woke to the sound of his alarm clock blaring next to his bedside](https://youtu.be/SsmVgoXDq2w?list=PLCD0445C57F2B7F41), the 80s song like an icepick behind the eyes, still slightly hungover from the previous night. Vlad lifted his head up groggily from where he had been drooling steadily into his pillow. He groaned, his hair in a terrible bird’s nest around his face.

Maddie the cat was curled up on the pillow next to him, her little pink nose tucked into the tip of her tail.

Vlad pawed vaguely around the bedside table, trying to turn off the alarm clock and accidentally knocking it off the table. “Manic monday” by the Bangles now slightly muffled from where it was coming from under his bed.

“ _ ~Just another manic monday oooo ohoooo wish it was sundayyyyy~” _

“Butter biscuits” Vlad slurred out. He lifted himself out of bed wearily, kicking over one of the empty bottles of wine that accumulated at the side of the bed. He leaned down, pawing about under the bed before, picking up the still blaring alarm and finally turning it off.

Vlad plopped the alarm on the nightstand, raising his arms and cracking his back. “Fuck.” He swore at the soreness in his joints “I’m old.”

Vlad stepped into his bunny slippers. For a moment he sat on the edge of his large bed, looking at the expansive master bedroom, out the bedroom door where there were dozens of large equally expansive and empty rooms. He couldn’t help but feel incredibly small.

When Vlad was a super villain he had never realized how much space he had that he never used, how his mansion seemed to echo on for mile upon empty mile. Back then his overblown sense of grandioseness had filled these halls. This was a house fit for a king, and back then Vlad was a man bound to be king,his rule, his dominion, and his queen inevitable.

Now though, Vlad was just a hungover middle-aged idiot with messy hair sitting in what amounted to a massive gilded cave. All that space seemed unbearable now, all the emptiness pressing in on him, choking him, making him feel smaller and smaller. 

Vlad picked up Maddie. The little white cat giving a sleepy “Murr?” as Vlad cuddled the little kitty to his chest, kissing her between the ears. Her presence seemed to help lessen the overwhelming sense of emptiness, her tiny little purr vibrating against his chest.

“You’re coming with me today Maddie.” Vlad murmured, suddenly unwilling to venture out of his bedroom without having her small presence with him.

Vlad shrugged on his bathrobe, Maddie the cat tucked to his chest and his bunny slippers on his feet as he shuffled out of his bedroom towards the bathroom. One unkempt hungover middle aged man and his tiny feline passenger shuffling slowly across the hardwood as if at any moment the house would pounce on him.

Vlad leaned against the tiled wall of the bathroom, he sat on the plush rug in front of the sink, hugging Maddie to his chest, feeling the soft rumble of her purr under his shaking fingers. 

Maddie and being in the smaller bathroom, helped somewhat to will away the overwhelming aloneness he had felt in his home. It felt as if the halls were breathing, yawning aching space filling up every corner.

Vlad hated not being in control, feeling small and alone and helpless.

It reminded him too much of the hospital, the medical staff watching him through tempered glass as he writhed bound to the hospital bed, the only human contact after driving Jack and Maddie away being timid Nurses wearing thick rubber gloves as they tried medication upon medication to try an ease the pain but never finding something that worked.

Back then Vlad had turned his fear into rage, and his doubt about his own future into detailed plans for revenge. It was something to cling to, something to keep him going when his own body seemed to be failing him.

Vlad almost wished he had that sort of burning rage back.

It’s far easier to be angry than it is to be afraid.

Vlad stroked Maddie thoughtfully. He couldn’t live like this. He tried to think back on a time when he had felt this sort of thing, before those long agonizing years in the hospital, what had he done back then?

Vlad thought for a moment, his eyes closed and his brows furrowed, leaning back on the bathroom sink.

Vlad’s eyes flew open, sitting straighter suddenly.

Freshman year.

Freshman year that’s right! The first two weeks of Vlad’s Freshman year in college!   
  
  


 

Vlad had been raised on a dairy farm, deep in rural Wisconsin. His father had been a Russian immigrant, a hard working man with grizzled eyebrows and an affinity for cows. A thick borsch-fed, heavy set man with an even heavier accent. Vlad remembered him as taciturn, speaking rarely and often with one word answers. Vlad later learned from his mother that it was because he struggled with english and refused to speak a word of Russian to him, hoping Vlad wouldn’t face the same stigma he faced for his accent and faltering english. It had been the cold war when his father was a young man emigrating to America so Vlad could understand his fears.

Vlad’s mother was a thin pale-faced american woman with long dark hair that she kept in a braid wound around her head under large sun hats. He remembered he would wake up every morning by her singing loudly and off-key as she went below his bedroom window towards the chicken coop in order to feed the chickens. He would stay in bed for a moment, smiling fondly as he listened to her greet the fluffy birds like a pack of well-bred ladies.

“Oh why Gertrude! You’re looking marvelous today!”

“Petunia your feathers look divine!”

“A lovely morning we’re having, huh Mildred?”

She had apparently faced a lot of backlash from her family for marrying Vlad’s father, so much so that Vlad had never known a single relative from her side of the family. Vlad’s father was away from what little family he had in the old country. This meant that their little immediate family was an island onto itself, set adrift in the Wisconsin corn fields.

Vlad had lived a quiet but busy childhood there, working on the farm from the time he could hold a bucket steady. He would wake up early, milk the cows, collect eggs, pick the vegetables in season, get the damn goats off the roof of the barn again. His evenings were spent reading and filling out the materials from his homeschool program. He liked learning and devoured every book he could get his hands on.

College had snuck up on Vlad, he had never really looked much at the world beyond the cornfields surrounding his home, or farther than the small town they drove to to buy seeds every season and held the raggedy run-down library Vlad would get his books from. 

One night after dinner though, his father and mother sat on the other side of the table from him, something hopeful sparking in their eyes. His father pushed Vlad’s test results across the scratched tabletop towards him.

“You have chance.” His father had told him in his thick accent, pride and fear and hope for Vlad mixing together in his dark eyes. “Take it.”   
  


 

 

Vlad had gone off to college at their behest. His parents stood together in the lonely dirt road, watching solemnly as the greyhound bus took away their only son.

Vlad had pressed his cheek to the bus window, watching his parents become smaller and smaller. It was there on that dirty bus, a suitcase in his lap and surrounded by chattering strangers, that Vlad felt a pressing, terrifying loneliness like he had never experienced before then, but was doomed to experience many times during his life.

It had continued in the dorms. Vlad had sat on the edge of his spare bed, his knees to his chest, staring at the blank wall and listening to the sounds of life and chattering from fellow students all around him, echoing through the thin walls. Despite being surrounded by people, only a wall away, he had never felt so alone, so absolute adrift, small, cut off from everything he had ever known and given him purpose.

He didn’t know how long he had stayed there, his hands shaking slightly where they clutched his knees, frozen in place with fear when his door suddenly swung open.

A fairly fed-up looking college administrator pushed in the largest man Vlad had ever seen into the room. The man just smiled and allowed himself to be man-handled, not seeming to recognize the obvious anger of the administrator.

“HERE.” The administrator growled, pushing him roughly into the middle of the room. “THIS IS YOUR ROOM. GET YOUR STUFF. THEN STAY IN IT.”

The other man raised a finger. “Can I-”

The administrator whirled towards him, their face red with rage. “NO! NO MORE STUPID QUESTIONS!” The administrator had then turned towards Vlad, their hands in angry fists at their sides. They pointed a shaking finger at Vlad who was still sitting dumbfounded on the bedf. “FROM NOW ON-” The administrator frothed with fury “HE’S YOUR PROBLEM!”

And with that they left the dorm room, slamming the door hard enough to make the wall shake.

The man then turned his attention to Vlad.

Vlad froze in his tracks, a bird spotted by the cat. He was massive what if he was awful to him! Vlad thought this day couldn’t get worse but-

A large delighted grin spread across the other man’s face and he practically skipped over to Vlad’s side of the room, looming over the smaller man and-

Vlad was swooped up into a bone-crushing hug. He wheezed at the force of it, scrabbling futilely to get away.

“HELLO NEW ROOM-MATE!” The man yelled, swinging Vlad back and forth, giving Vlad the same treatment as a five year old that had been presented with a new teddy bear. “IT’S SO GOOD TO MEETCHA! I CAN ALREADY TELL WE’LL BE THE BEST OF PALS!”

Vlad was then set very roughly down, too shocked to really process what just happened when the other man took his hand and pumped it up and down roughly, making Vlad shake sideways with the force of it.

“I’M JACK!” Jack apparently, announced, inches away from Vlad’s face as he yelled his portion of the introduction.

Vlad tried to compose himself, smoothing down his ruffled hair. “err...Vlad.”

Jack grinned, giving him a couple of finger guns. “VLADSTER!”

Vlad gave him a look. “Vlad.” He stated firmly.

“VLAD-MAN!” Jack tried again.

Vlad huffed “VLAD.”

“VLADERINO!” Jack presented the name with a couple of Jazz hands as if the effect would get Vlad to accept his new title.

Vlad frowned, crossing his arms. “VLAD!”

Jack paused, his hand to his chin in thought, staring down at Vlad like an appraiser to an art piece. He snapped, pointing a finger gun at Vlad “I GOT IT!” He pointed down at Vlad. “VLADDIE!”

Vlad sighed. It was the least terrible out of the bunch “....fine.”

Jack grinned. “See! I KNEW we would get along!”   
  
  


 

The next day Vlad again woke up to loud off-key singing. Jack was hunched over the portable electric burner that they weren’t supposed to have in the dorms, an apron tied around his hips as he tried (and failed) to make breakfast.

“Hey Vladdie!” Jack smiled when he saw he was awake. He held a frying pan in one hand over the burner, a tiny coal-black lump in the center of the pan was smoking ominously. “How do you cook an egg?”

Vlad grimaced, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and rising from bed. “Cheese on toast Jack! What the heck are you doing??” He yanked the frying pan out of his roommate's hand roughly, his shoulders a tense angry line as he trudged over to the trash can and scraped the practically incinerated lump out of the pan. “These cooktops are banned in the dorms! You could’ve gotten us BOTH in trouble!”

Jack laughed, the full force of his mega-watt smile on Vlad. He booped Vlad on the nose. “Ha! You swear like a grandma!”

Vlad blushed, his shoulders hunching. He pointed the frying pan at Jack threateningly. “No I do NOT!”

Jack snorted “Yeah you do! It’s cute!”

Vlad rolled his eyes “I’m not CUTE.  Also, if you didn’t know how to fry and egg, shouldn’t you have asked BEFORE you tried to fry the egg?”

Jack patted Vlad condescendingly on the head, messing his already sleep-mussed hair. Vlad batted his hand away testily. “Are too!” Jack shrugged “and I was trying to surprise you!” He tapped his two fore-fingers together almost sheepishly. “...You know the first breakfast as roomies!”

Vlad was still half-asleep, his hair mussed, wearing a pair of old sleep pants his mother had given him that were patterned with tiny cartoon cows. He had a reason to be angry, he did, but looking at the kicked puppy look on Jack’s face and knowing that he MEANT to do something nice made Vlad feel like an asshole about how he reacted.

Vlad sighed, running a hand down his face and pinching the bridge of his nose. “....wanna go for bagels?”

The change in Jack was immediate, perking up like a dog that had heard the shake of the dog-food bag. “WOO! BAGELS!”

Vlad shrugged on his coat sleepily, slipping into a pair of flip-flops and not bothering to change out of the cow patterned sleep pants. 

Jack grabbed his car keys off his desk, picking Vlad up and slinging the half away freshman over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “BAGELS! BAGELS! BAGELS! BAGELS!” He chanted, running down the hall with all the grace and finesse of an elephant. 

Fellow students opened their doors to sneer at him and shout “SHUT THE FUCK UP” and “JACK WHAT THE HELL?”

Jack didn’t pay them any mind, continuing to chant as he made his way to the parking lot. “BAGELS! BAGELS! BAGELS!”

Vlad threw up a fist weakly, still not quite awake enough to function. “....woo...bagels….”   
  
  


 

About a week after Jack burst into their shared room. “VLAD!”

Vlad looked up from his textbook, annoyance furrowed into his brow, dark circles etched under the corners of his eyes. “Jack I’m studying!”

Jack was nearly shaking with excitement. “There’s karaoke in the dorm common room!”

Vlad turned back to his textbook, scritching a couple of equations into a nearby notebook. “I’m NOT going to karaoke! That’s ABSURD!”

Jack picked up Vlad, chair and all. “Come on you stick in the mud! You’ll enjoy it!”

Vlad seethed where he was sitting in the desk chair, bobbing slightly up and down as he was carried. “Doubt it.” He grumbled direly.

Half an hour later both Vlad and Jack were on the makeshift stage in the dorm common room, singing their hearts out together in a badly sung but enthusiastic duet.

Jack bobbed his head rhythmically, swaying his hips from side-to-side “[JUST A SMALL TOWN GIRL!~](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k8craCGpgs)” He crooned off-key, his voice cracking at the end but not caring in the slightest. “LIVING IN A LOOOONELYYY WOOOOORLD!”

Vlad looked nervously out at where the other students in their dorm were watching the pair of them on stage. Why did he let Jack get him into this kind of stuff?  “...s-she took the midnight train going anywhere...” he managed to stutter out.

Jack began the next verse “JUST A CITY BOYYY! BORN AND RAISED IN SOUTH DETROIT!” He pulled Vlad in by the shoulder so they could share a mic, his energy was infectious and Vlad found himself singing louder as he and Jack joined together on the next verse. “HE TOOK THE MIDNIGHT TRAIN GOING ANYWHERE!!!”

Soon Vlad was singing as loudly as Jack. He threw his head back as he sang into the mic. “STREETLIGHTS! PEOPLE!”

Jack threw back his own head, striking a Madonna vogue pose on stage, making the students in the audience laugh as they clapped along to the song. “LIVING JUST TO FIND EMOTION!”

Vlad dropped to his knees, head thrown back in artistic ecstasy as Jack furiously shredded an air guitar behind him. “HIDING SOMEWHERE IN THE NIIIIIIIIIGHT!!!!”

Their classmates hooped and hollered pumping their fists.

Jack and Vlad came back together. “DON’T STOP! BELIEVING!” HOLD ONTO THE FEELING!!!!! STREETLIGHTS!!! PEOOOOPLLLLLEEE!!!!!!”

Afterwards he and Jack walked back to their dorm, Vlad feeling slightly giddy from his performance, a wide shit eating grin on his face that wouldn’t go away.

“Dude!” Jack bumped shoulders with him. “That was amazing! We should start a band!”

“No chance in hell-” Vlad huffed shaking his head, a smile on his face, even though he knew Jack would get him to do it eventually. “-are we going to be starting a band.”   
  
  


 

Vlad opened the door to their shared dorm only to find seemingly every surface covered in stacks upon stacks of pizza boxes. Jack of course was in the center of it, piecing together what looked like an igloo made out of carefully placed greasy boxes.

Vlad stared at the mess, not quite being able to process it.

Jack grinned at his friend, a wide grin on his face. “WELCOME HOME VLADDIE!”

Vlad stared at the mess. “Jack...What...why?”

Jack put his hands on his hips, looking over the greasy cardboard igloo happily “THIS-” He motioned to the hut “Is the leaning tower of PIZZA!”

Jack wiggled his eyebrows. “Get it?”

Vlad looked over the structure. “Looks more like a pizza hut.”

Jack grinned, shooting a couple of finger guns at Vlad “WOO! GREAT PUN!”

Vlad blinked, grimacing when he realized he did in fact make a pun. “I didn’t mean to-” He ran a hand down his face “It was so cheesy I-”

Jack pointed a couple more finger guns at Vlad, wiggling his eyebrows “EYYYYY!”

Vlad hissed “Wait no!”

“Too late!” Jack’s shoulders quaked with laughter “You’re already a punster! Embrace it you weirdo!”

Vlad frowned at Jack, his hands on his hips. Then a glimmer came to Vlad’s eyes, a slow smile stretching across his face “Don’t you mean a weird-dough?"

Jack was struck for a moment, looking over at Vlad with awe. He wiped an imaginary tear from under his eye. “They…” He sniffed “They grow up so fast!”

Vlad rolled his eyes “Whatever.” He looked over at the greasy structure. “What can I do to help?”

Jack slapped him on the back. “That’s the spirit!” He pushed a small stack of pizza boxes into Vlad’s hands “Help me reinforce it from the inside!”

Vlad rolled his eyes, but there was also a small fond smile on his face. “Aye aye captain.” He sunk to the floor, shuffling into the rounded opening of the pizza igloo. He wiggled through the opening and-

A girl was already in the hut, she paused where she was tearing a piece of tape off the roll with her teeth. She had red permed hair, a smattering of freckles across her face and large intelligent-looking purple eyes. 

“Oh um-” She startled slightly at his sudden presence, fiddling with the roll of tape awkwardly in her hands. “Hi.”

Vlad could hear the slight southern twang that twisted around her words, smoky and sweet, though he could tell she was embarrassed of it, because as soon as the words left her mouth she put a hand over her lips and shook her head. Despite the leg warmers and the permed hair, she had a pretty sort of country-born-and-raised look to her. Like cornfields and quiet mornings. Her light red hair caught the sparse light like a wheatfield during sunset. 

Vlad could sympathize with someone transplanted from the county, he was the same way.

She coughed, clearing her throat. “Hi!” She tried again, her accent stifled. She tucked some red hair behind an ear and held out a hand to him. “I’m Madeline.”

Vlad took her hand, equally as nervous. “Vladimir.”

The top box lifted from the hut and Jack’s smiling face peered through with a shock of light. “Maddie! Vladdie!” He grinned “Glad you two met!” He put a fist into an open palm. “We’ll need all the help we can get to finish our-” He fondled an imaginary mustache on his face ”-PIZZA-DE-RESISTANCE!” He said the last bit in a corny italian accent. “HON HON HON!” and with that the pizza box was returned to its place, blocking the light.

Maddie blinked in the once again low-light. “I don’t know how I got roped into this.” She whispered to Vlad. “One moment I’m taking the student council pizza party trash to the dumpster, and then he shows up, and we start talking…. and then this happened?…”

Vlad looked up at all the pizza boxes. “So THAT’S where he got all this…” He looked at Maddie, offering her an apologetic smile “And don’t worry... he’s just... like that.”

Maddie stifled a laugh behind a hand “Yeah, I guess he has a certain way about him.”

Jack peeked his face into the entrance of the pizza box igloo, absolutely giddy with delight. “Maddie! Vladdie!” He inched his way in, his size meaning he could only fit in his upper body, Vlad and Maddie on either side of him. “Isn’t this RAD?”

Jack looked up at the mass of greasy cardboard as if it was the Sistine chapel. Vlad looked down at his friend, one brow dangerously arched. “If by rad you mean greasy and NOT STAYING, then yes, it’s very rad.”

Jack pouted “Oh COME ON!” He motioned excitedly out at the cardboard roof. Maddie had to quick catch his hand to keep him from knocking over one of the walls “This is totally AWESOME!”

“Well uh.” Maddie blushed when she realized she was still holding Jack’s wrist. She gently set his hand down on his chest. She tucked her hair behind an ear again and smoothed down her skirt. “It will...like... start to smell after a couple of days.”

Jack huffed at Maddie. “I guess you’re right.” Jack turned back to Vlad a grin overtaking his features once again. “Hey before we throw this away wanna turn it upside down and see if it floats in the campus fountain?”

Vlad crossed his arms “What? No!”

  
  
  


Half an hour later Vlad and Maddie were on the grass of the campus courtyard, watching with something akin to both horror and awe as the upside-down pizza igloo slowly bobbed through the water past them in the school fountain. Jack stood in the center of the cardboard monstrosity like a proud captain, a delighted grin on his face.

“BEHOLD!” Jack had his hands on his hips, looking dramatically off into the distance. “I AM THE CAPTAIN OF THE S.S MOZZARELLA!”

Maddie was dumbfounded, watching with wide-eyes as Jack bobbed past, waving excitedly at the both of them, a wide grin on his face. She blinked owlishly, her hands on her knees. “...I can’t believe that actually worked.”

“HEY GUYS!” Jack called to the both of them “WANNA SEE A TRICK?”

Vlad had his chin in one hand, watching bemusedly. “No!” He called out “You might fall out and back your head against the side of the fountain!”

Jack snorted, waving off his concern. “No I won’t!” He braced one leg against the edge of the boat. “I call this one The funky-”

Neither of them found out what the trick was going to be called however, as the water seeped through the little makeshift boat, making Jack’s other foot punch through the soggy cardboard, this swung Jack off-kilter and into the water, tearing apart the little cardboard boat in the process.

Maddie and Vlad stood up hurriedly from where they were on the grass. “JACK!” They scrambled over to the lip of the fountain, just as Jack surfaced suddenly from the water, spraying the both of them with water.

Jack pouted at the pizza boxes floating dejectedly around the campus fountain. “My boat…”

Maddie wiped some water from her face. She looked over at the pizza boxes and shrugged “Next time use a material with a a higher tensile strength that isn’t water soluble.” She put a hand to her chin. “That plus a more defined stern should help with overcoming the water current and allowing a higher degree of maneuverability.”

Jack looked at her like she was a wizard. “WHOA!” He grinned at her, still sitting in the fountain “You’re like… MAD SMART!”

Maddie blushed, putting a delicate hand to her mouth. “Oh um... I’m an engineering student. Mechanical and electrical engineering...”

Jack grinned at her. “That’s so cool!” He looked over at Vlad “Vlad here is a physics major!”

Vlad was wringing out his sweater from where Jack had drenched it. “Physics and metaphysics.” He tried to look nonchalant, wanting to impress Maddie but not seem braggadocios about it. “I’m hoping to discover the indiscoverable through the application of-”

Jack grinned, leaning towards Maddie. “Like GHOSTS!”

Maddie giggled, a hand over her mouth.

Vlad rolled his eyes “More like string theory and the possibilities of alternate dimensions.”

Jack waved his hands, looking out dramatically into the distance, the effect somewhat ruined by the fact that he was still sitting in a water fountain. “ LIKE THE GHOST DIMENSION!”

Vlad rolled his eyes. “Yes Jack.” His voice dripped with sarcasm “Like the ghost dimension.”

Maddie perked up “Well there are certain irregularities in Earth’s magnetic field that can be picked up by an electromagnetic frequency reader, some people have speculated that these irregularities can be caused by the thinning of our reality!” She shrugged at Jack “Or um, ghosts!”

Jack struggled out of the fountain, dripping wet with a pizza box still stuck around his ankle. “You are both so cool!” He stepped out onto the concrete path, his sneakers squeaking as he walked. He looked at Maddie. “Hey wanna join us at the cafeteria?” He bounced up and down slightly like an eager puppy. “We can talk more about ghosts!”

Maddie laughed “You know what? Sure.”   
  
  


 

Jack had been an overly cheerful one-man wrecking ball that filled Vlad’s life from top to bottom. He was ten farms worth of noise and company. Vlad had spent half his time tearing his hair out over Jack and the other half being extremely grateful that he was there.

Vlad knew what he had to do.

  
  
  


Star was sitting on the other side of the Amity Park animal shelter. She worked volunteered here after school the days she didn’t have cheer-leading practice with Paulina. She turned the page of the magazine she was reading, listening to the constant white noise of dogs yapping in the back room. All in all it was a pretty good gig, she liked animals and it was bound to look nice on her college application.

The bell to the front door chimed, the sound of boots scuffing across the rubber entrance way mat. Star quickly stashed her magazine under the desk. “Welcome to the Amity Park animal shelter how may I help y-”

Vlad Masters, Mayor of Amity Park stood at the front desk. He was wearing an impeccably trimmed suit, his grey hair pulled into a neat ponytail, a pair of what Star recognized as impossibly expensive Gucci sunglasses obscured his eyes. He loomed over the desk like a dark (albeit fashionable) omen.

“Good morning” Vlad Masters spoke in a low genteel rumble.

It was 2pm but Star was too busy suddenly feeling incredibly insecure and nervous to remember that. “Mister mayor!” She squeaked. She adjusted the flower clip in her hair self-consciously. She clasped her hands together and smiled. “Can I help you?”

“With most things-” The older man looked down his nose at her “No, but there is one matter where you may be able to assist me.”

Star felt the weird urge to bow. Mayor Masters had that weird sort of vibe about him. Like he had all the strings. Like he could either make you the luckiest person alive, or send a hitman to your house for getting dirt on his shoes. She had absolutely no idea how right she was, or rather how right she would have been a little more than a week ago.

Star nodded seriously up at him. “What could I do for you?”

Vlad Masters edged down his shades, fixing Star with an icy gaze that she SWORE made the temperature of the room go down slightly. “I want a cat.”

Star blinked. Her heart pounding too hard in her chest to really process that. “...A cat?”

Vlad Master’s eyes narrowed. “Not just any cat.” His voice was the low howl of the wind through tombstones. “Your worst cat.”

So far this was one of the most terrifying and bemusing experiences of Star’s young life, and she was routinely possessed by ghosts with the rest of her school. She tried to focus on how “...The worst cat? Like…”

Vlad put a hand to his chest, looking down at her with something akin to condescension but with a knife’s edge. “Let me rephrase. I want your loudest, most annoying, troublesome and demanding creature that you have on the premises.” He leaned over the table towards her and Star could see the dark circles under his eyes. “Now can you HELP me or NOT?”

“YES!” Star squeaked, fumbling for her keys “YES I CAN!”

Star hurried to the door leading to the back of the animal shelter where all the animals were kept. Her hands shook as she put the key into the lock, Vlad looming behind her like a specter.

Star opened the door for him, the man walking around her and into the room. The dogs in the kennels bristled as he walked past, barking or whining with their tails between their legs.

Star led him to the cat room. She paused at the door, looking  back at him. “Um sir?”

Vlad grimaced down at her, a shiver running down her spine. “WHAT?”

Star looked back at the door. “There’s one cat I have in mind but uh…”

Vlad squared his chin. “Show me.”

In the cat room Vlad and Star stood side-by-side looking at the bottom kennel. Star had her hands folded, looking down at the large cage, her lips thinned. Vlad chewed on the arm of his sunglasses,something like awe and horror in his eyes.

“What the hell.” Vlad mused “Did you feed that thing?”

Star put up her hands, absolving herself of responsibility. “I swear it like...totally came here like that.”

As they watched the massive cage there was the sound of (Mrow?)followed by a metallic (Tunk).

“Mrow?”

(Tunk)

“Mrow?”

(Tunk)

“Mrow?”

(Tunk)

The pair of humans watched the cat blandly. Star fidgeted slightly where she stood. “He’s uh…” She started, coughing into her hand. “He’s a sweet cat he’s just uh….”

“Mrow?”

(Tunk)

“Mrow?”

(Tunk)

“Mrow?”

(Tunk)

Vlad pushed up his sunglasses, a small almost imperceptible smile curling at the corners of his mouth. “He’s perfect.”

  
  
  


Danny pushed a mound of disorganized papers into his locker, the mass of unfinished english assignments, permission slips, detention notices and perhaps an old applecore or two, slumped into the locker like the nest of some sort of terrible bird.

Tucker leaned against the locker next to Danny’s, worry pinching his features. “Sams been weird lately.”

“She wore a cape and veil into the pool Tucker.” Danny sighed, clipping his lock onto the locker and fiddling with the dial to keep someone from guessing his combination “There’s no ‘lately’ about it”

“Ok but like weird-weird” Tucker held up his hands “I haven’t seen her since Fruit-loop McPonytail drove her home, and she’s been acting hella standoffish in the group chat.”

That made Danny pause.

Anything that involved Vlad Masters had to be subject to extreme scrutiny. Who knows what the old weirdo might have done to Sam that night he drove her home. A lot of weird stuff happened in this town, nothing was off the table.

Danny grimaced. “....Mind control?”

Tucker ran a hand down his face. “Amulets that switch your brains!”

Danny leaned against his locker, his face stricken. Oh god he never should have left Sam alone with him. “Threatened her parents or-”

Tucker put his hands on either side of his head. “OR MAYBE HE SWITCHED HER OUT WITH A CLONE!”

Danny’s shoulders were hunched “Or maybe a-”

“Hey guys!”

Both Tucker and Danny shrieked at the sound of Sam’s voice, flinching back towards their lockers.

Sam stood in front of them, her hair was pulled out of its usual ponytail, held back by a simple white headband where it curled demurely behind her ears. She wore her usual black and purple skirt but instead of her usual black shirt she wore a white button-down blouse with a deep purple sweater vest. She wore knee-high socks and a pair of dainty-looking mary janes had replaced her usual combat boots.

“AH!” Tucker threw a textbook wildly at her “I KNEW IT! HE REPLACED HER WITH A CLONE!”

“HEY!” Sam dodged the thrown textbook. She picked Tucker up by the front of his sweater, pulling him in close, practically growling with anger. “THROW ANOTHER BOOK AT ME AND I’LL-”

Sam paused. She put Tucker down and smoothed her skirt. ‘Uh I mean…” She coughed lightly into a fist. She looked down her nose at Tucker “Please refrain from such tomfoolery.” She threw back her hair, raising her nose haughtily in the air “I have class to get to.”

Danny and Tucker grimaced at her. “...What?”

Sam popped up a shoulder, grinning viciously at the pair. “Oh yeah! That’s right!” She pointed at Tucker, a manic grin spreading across her face. “I’M TAKING YOUR PLACE NERD BOY!”

Tucker’s eyes widened, then narrowed with confusion “What?”

Sam put her hands on her hips. “Like HELL and I going to be the VLAD of this group!” She snapped at Tucker “So I’m stealing your place as group nerd! Now YOU have to be the Vlad!”

“WHAT?” Tucker threw his hands in the air “YOU CAN’T JUST STEAL MY NERD SPOT!”

Sam grinned at him “WATCH ME!” The shadows seemed to coalesce around her as he delivered a dire prophecy. “MR. NEW FUTURE VLAD!”

Tucker sunk to the floor of the hallway. “NO!!! I DON’T WANT TO BE THE VLAD!”

Same loomed above him, bubbling with vicious manic laughter. “AHAHAHAHAHA!”

Danny looked over at his friends, his lips thinned to a harsh line. He took a sip of his water bottle. This was stupid.

“You know Sam…” Danny remarked “Stealing someone’s position is a….” He smiled wryly “...A very VLAD thing to do.”

Sam looked at him, her eyes wide, her mouth agape.

Tucker looked up at her, a vicious smile spreading across his face. “THAT’S RIGHT!” he stood up and pointed a finger at Sam “Stealing someone’s position IS a VLAD thing to do!” He crossed his arms smugly. “Besides, you’re not smart enough to be the nerd of the group.”

Sam recovered from her shock, crossing her own arms and smiling at Tucker, batting her eyelashes. “Oh? Were you just flaunting your intelligence during a fight? What a VLAD thing to do!”

Tucker gasped, putting his hand to his chest. He pointed at Sam “What was that? Were you just being smug and condescending? What a VLAD thing to do!”

“Well-” Sam sputtered. She clenched her fists “You’re the one who could build a villain lab if they wanted to!”

“Yeah?” Tucker crossed his arms, sneering down at Sam. “Well you’re the one who usually wears ponytails!”

Sam threw up her hands “What does THAT have to do with anything?”

“THINK ABOUT IT.” Tucker hissed “Vlad. Ember. YOU. IT’S A VERY EVIL HAIRSTYLE!”

Sam growled “Oh come ON! There have been more with beards!” She put her hands on her hips “And which one of us will be able to grow a beard someday? Oh yeah, that’s right, YOU!”

“YOU’RE THE ONE WHO WEARS BLACK!”

“DID YOU GO THROUGH AN EVIL RULER PHASE?”

“I WAS POSSESSED BY A GHOST THAT DOESN’T COUNT!”

Danny sighed, watching his friends bicker. It was going to be a long day.

  
  
  


Vlad lugged the cat carrier into the house, huffing slightly, his face red from the strain.

“WHAT THE HELL-” Vlad growled, taking bow-legged steps into his house “-DID THEY FEED YOU?”

Vlad dropped the cat carrier onto the hardwood floor. “Now there.” Vlad opened the door of the cat carrier. “This is your new home.”

The cat that trundled slowly out of the cat carrier was an absolute behemoth of a feline. The fluffy monstrosity seemed to emerge from the cat carrier like cranberry sauce being wiggled out of the can, the copious amounts of black hair having seemed to have taken on the shape of the inside of the carrier.

The cat shook out their fur, an explosion of hair coming off from the cat.

Vlad sputtered, some of the fluff having landed on his face. He looked at his poor hardwood floors, static cling making the fur cling to just about every surface he could see.

“Mrow.”

The cat that Vlad had taken home was a massive long-haired cat, black but with a little bit of white on his belly and his paws. His grey eyes were spread widely apart on his little furry face. His tongue was out as well. All around it looked like an idiotic storm cloud.

“Mrow!” the cat announced, looking up at Vlad. It then tottered off, the massive cat waddling like a sumo wrestler. It went to explore the living room.

Vlad clasped his hands together. “Alright. I’ll just go make dinner and-”

The moment Vlad was turned away he heard the shatter of glass. He turned back to find that the cat had been in his living room for a grand total of ten seconds before it knocked over one of Vlad’s tall lamps, shattering the glass and the bulb on the hardwood floor.

Vlad sighed.

During the brief hours that the cat had been there it had gotten stuck in various air ducts, vomited on one of his rugs and chewed through three electrical cords (Vlad wasn’t sure how it survived that one).

Not only that but Maddie wasn’t pleased with the newcomer, hissing whenever the belligerent storm cloud of cat came near. The cat in question didn’t seem to realize that she hated him with a burning passion and always tottered over to her to try and make friends despite her growling and hissing.

Vlad had to hold Maddie away from the other cat, Maddie slinking across his shoulders and looking direly down at the other cat that was sitting at Vlad’s feet.

“Mrow?”

Vlad glared down at the cat. “No! She doesn’t want to play with you!”

“Mrow!”

Vlad pointed an accusing finger at the cat. “None of your sass mister!”

The cat just purred and licked his finger.

Vlad’s anger immediately deflated. He stooped down to pet the cat, scratching the furry behemoth under the chin as it’s purrs grew lounder and nuzzled into his hand. “...Sorry Jack I know you don’t mean it.”

Jack the cat seemed to smile up at Vlad. “Mrow!” He rubbed himself across Vlad’s pants leg, leaving a large splotch of cat hair against the suit.

Vlad sighed, standing up and trying his best to brush off the hair, Maddie still around his shoulders. “....Why did I do this?”

A scroll popped into being in front of Vlad’s face.

Vlad screamed, holding Maddie the cat above his head in an instinctual effort to save her, the confused kitty dangling from his hands.

Vlad glared down at the scroll at his feet. “I COULD HAVE DROPPED-” Vlad yelled indignantly at the air where he imagined the deity of truth was watching him “MY CAT!”

Vlad put the shaken Maddie back to his chest, leaning down to pick up the scroll.

“Because you’re stupid, lonely and secretly soft-hearted” The scroll read out in beautiful calligraphy, the word “stupid” underlined a couple of times.

Vlad grimaced at the air. “Am NOT.”

Another scroll bounced down from somewhere above Vlad into where he held Maddie the Cat in the crook of his arm. Vlad unrolled the scroll, Maddie pawed at one of the corner’s of the page.

“lol.” The scroll read “Are too”

Vlad put a hand into the air “Oh whatever! Where have you BEEN all this time?”

“Oh you know…” The next scroll read. Jack the cat was batting the scrolls that Vlad had tossed to the ground. “Important deity stuff, nothing a mortal meatbag like you would understand.” Vlad rolled his eyes “Why did you miss me?”

Vlad scoffed, folding his arms. “What! No!”

The next scroll had a scribbly buck-toothed drawing of Vlad that seemed to be weeping. “Wahh!” The drawing said “I’m Vlad! I miss the totally cool deity of truth!!!”

Vlad rolled his eyes and tossed the drawing. “Oh you WISH!”

“You totally missed me.” The scroll announced in smug looping script “If I was gone a day longer you might have gotten forty more cats.”

Vlad scoffed “Is that what you think of me? Some crazy cat lady?”

Another drawing popped into view. It was the same sketchy buck-toothed crying Vlad from before except this Vlad was surrounded by at least fifty cats. “Wahh! I’m Vlad! I’m a crazy cat lady!”

Vlad sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose as Maddie began to chew on the corner of the scroll, batting her hind legs into the paper as if it was prey she was killing. “Look I just....” He held up a hand vaguely “I needed a distraction...” He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly “My entire life’s mission for twenty years was completely derailed and I don’t quite know what to do with it yet.”

Maddie was absolutely delighted when another scroll fell into Vlad’s arms, wrapping her little paws around it and biting. Vlad had to tug it away from the little kitty, a fond smile on his face.

“So your first step… was to get a cat? That’s pretty pathetic...more so than usual.”

Vlad flushed with embarrassment. He looked down at Jack the cat who was still twining between his legs “Oh shut up. It’s a start isn’t it?” He reached down and petted the cat’s ears “A step being not quite so villainous.”

“Yeah… speaking of being not quite so villainous… I actually came to ask you...err….” There was a long space in the scroll before in hurried cramped writing at the bottom was added “So what are you going to do with your evil villain lab?”

Vlad froze, his shoulders tensing and his eyes going wide. He had uh… he had forgotten about that.  Maddie chewed on the corner of the paper, oblivious to the situation and enjoying the crunchy paper.

Vlad edged down the stairs, still holding Maddie in his arms and Jack tottering clumsily about his feet. He flipped back the Packer’s football trophy that opened the secret door to his lair.

Vlad stood in the secret entrance, watching the wall swing back, a cat in his arms, and a grimace on his face. “Oh my god.” He sighed,  Maddie pausing where she was chewing one of the Deity of Truth's scrolls to look up at him. Vlad looked back down at her. “The secret passages to secret laboratories, I’m a goddamn cliche aren’t I?”

“Mrow.” Jack seemed to agree.

Maddie licked his beard consolingly.

The feeling of walking down the long stairs into his old lab was a mixture of nostalgia, grief and embarrassment. Like seeing a picture of yourself in the fourth grade when you had braces and liked Yugioh. Like the morning after a New Year’s eve party when you wake up with a severe hangover, someone else’s lipstick on your face and your blouse inside out. Like four years of grueling college education and then graduating and realising at the ceremony that you have absolutely no idea what to do with your degree.

Vlad looked at a corkboard to the side, newspaper clippings tacked to the wall regarding the Fenton’s as well as young Daniel’s escapades all connected with seemingly miles of red string. Next to that, there was a long table of half-finished experiments, devices designed to aid Vlad’s takeover of the world, wooing of Maddie, and the murder of Jack, all strung out with their electric innards exposed. A whiteboard over the table showed a complex electrical diagram of another ghastly device.

Vlad felt a deep pang of regret and nostalgia. He used to be someone who had direction, purpose and energy. The person who made all these devices and plans was someone who knew what they were going to do with their life.

That plan and purpose in life may have included murder and taking over the world, but still.

Jack the cat jumped up onto one of the tables, batting one of Vlad’s devices with a little fuzzy paw.

“No no no!” Vlad rushed over to the cat, lifting him off the table and setting him onto the floor “Don’t touch that sweetie it’s dangerous!”

Jack that cat sat on Vlad’s feet. “Mrow!”

Vlad picked up the device, a little metallic box with his insignia on it. He pressed the button, two wicked looking pincers swung out of the box, needle sharp and crackling with ghost disrupting energy. Maddie hissed, crawling up Vlad to his shoulders, away from the device.

“Aw…” Vlad put a hand to his chest, looking down at the device with nostalgia and pride. “I was going to use this on Daniel during our next fight….brings back memories…”

A distant roar caught Vlad’s attention, turning his head to look in the direction of the ominous howling roar, the clatter of chains hitting a steel wall.

“Oh yeah…” Vlad grimaced. “...that…”

On the other side of the lab was an enormous steel box, secured with heavy chains bolted into the floor. The box shook ominously back and forth as the thing inside threw themselves to one end and then to the other, shaking the chains, a muffled roar sounded from inside the sealed prison.

Letters began to print themselves onto Vlad’s whiteboard as if being written by an invisible hand. Vlad was fascinated to see that it was the same type of ink he had in the whiteboard markers and yet none of them had moved. His brows furrowed, wondering just how the Deity of Truth WORKED before the gravity of the message really hit him.

“YEAH.” The whiteboard announced in script less elegant and more fearful and hurried than her normal style “THAT. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT THAT?”

“Uhhhh….” Vlad stared at the metal box that was screaming, rocking from side-to-side ominously.

“Oh my god.” More words began to print onto the board “You don’t know do you?”

Vlad put his hands to his hips, looking at the whiteboard indignantly “WELL! NOT BEING A VILLAIN COMPLICATES THINGS!”

Vlad had found the creature a while ago on his trips through the Ghost Zone, captured it and taken it back to his lab and experimented on it, the creature growing in size and ferocity. He was had been planning on setting the monster on Daniel, maybe at some sort of event like a prom or a homecoming or whatever it was the kids these days did just to annoy him.

Vlad liked to keep up to date on the teen, being the only other half-ghost in existence made Vlad feel a bit like he had some sort of responsibility towards the lad to at least mark his progress over the years. Like a great aunt that looks through your photos on facebook every once in a while, except for Vlad it was settling loose monsters and then taking notes on Daniel’s use of battle strategy and ghost powers. Oh you used your ghostly wail? That one is going right in the scrapbook, on in his case the crazy person corkboard wall where everything was connected with red string.

Vlad sighed long-sufferingly, opening his own ghost portal and moving to kick the massive box into the swirling green energy.

“Uh…” the words were printed firmly across the whiteboard “What are you doing?”

Vlad paused, one of his feet braced against the box and his cat around his shoulders. He looked indignantly at the whiteboard “What do you mean what am I doing? I’m getting rid of it!”

“...”

Vlad thought for a moment. “Wait...just throwing it in the ghost zone means that it will most probably just show up in the Fenton’s portal…” He growled tearing at his hair “OH BUTTER BISCUITS! BEING RESPONSIBLE AND CARING FOR PEOPLE IS HARD!”

“Just figuring that one out genius?” the whiteboard printed out the letters with a sarcastic air.

Vlad stroked his beard with thought. He could try killing it, but he had designed it specifically as a challenge for Daniel and well… Vlad hated to admit it but he doubted that he could defeat it without any sort of casualty to himself or his lab, it might even escape and then HE would be blamed for releasing it on the city!

Which quite honestly...he had been planning to do...before… BUT THAT WAS THEN!

Vlad sighed. It would be so much easier to just let it go and let someone else deal with it. However even though Vlad was new to the whole “Being good” thing he was pretty sure that letting a monster loose on an unsuspecting world was definitely in the “not good” category.

Vlad groaned. “WHY IS BEING GOOD-” He threw his head back to yell melodramatically “SO DIFFICULT?”

“YOU’RE THE ONE WHO MADE A MONSTER YOU IRRESPONSIBLE, OVER-DRAMATIC, FUCK!” The whiteboard yelled out in capital letters.

“THAT WAS BACK THEN! Vlad yelled, hunching his shoulders defensively and wrapping his arms around himself. 

“WELL THIS MONSTER IS HERE NOW!” the writing on the whiteboard answered back, underlining the word “Now” several times “SO FIX IT!”

Vlad ran his hands down his unshaven face. Maddie the cat was still around his shoulders, watching Vlad curiously. Vlad rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Uh…..ok.” He took a deep breath “I’m going to need a plan, I need to think about this, shower and then uh...this.”

“VLAD.” 

Vlad put a finger up “I’m GOING TO do it ok!” He turned and began to walk out of the lab, Maddie still around his shoulders.

Vlad walked up the stairs out of his lab, exiting into his Packers memorabilia room. 

On one of the undusted trophies in the room letters began to appear as if an invisible finger was being run through the dust. “VLAD.”

Vlad ignored the writings, trudging up the stairs towards the bathroom. 

A decorative mirror in the hall suddenly fogged over, more words being written in the fog, the glass squeaking as if being touched. “VLAD I SWEAR TO GOD.”

“I’M DEALING WITH IT!” Vlad yelled back petulantly.

A scroll of paper whapped Vlad on the face. Vlad took the scroll and pointed vaguely in the air. “I AM dealing with it! I just need TIME to THINK!” He then threw the scroll as hard as he could away from him down the stairs.

As soon as the scroll was out of Vlad’s sight, the same scroll came barreling towards Vlad from the opposite direction, beaning him soundly on the back of the head.

Vlad growled, rubbing where the scroll had hit him, glaring down incredulously where he had thrown the scroll. “WHAT? HOW?”

Vlad yelled, throwing the offending piece of paper UP the stairs this time, the same scroll whizzing through the air and once out of sight immediately barreled towards Vlad from down the stairs. 

Vlad hissed, his brows furrowed. He threw up his hands “OH WHATEVER!” He unrolled the scroll angrily.

“I SWEAR TO GOD VLAD.”

Vlad put up his hands as if in surrender “Look. I need a plan right?” He put his hand to his forehead. He stalked to the bathroom, yelling at the deity from the doorway “I just need time to THINK!”

Vlad slammed the bathroom door hard enough that the hallway seemed to shake with the force.

After a moment Vlad opened the door again and set the confused Maddie down on the hallway carpet outside. He then closed the door again.

Maddie blinked, sitting down on the carpet and staring at the door, waiting for Vlad to come out again. Jack the cat trudged up the stairs, sitting next to her and joining her in her vigil.

Vlad leaned his cheek against the cool tile of the shower, letting the coolness seep into his skin, water running through his hair.

Vlad didn’t know what to do and he hated it.

He hated not being in control.

It reminded him too much of hospital beds and restraints and pain as his organs remade themselves under his skin and-

He couldn’t face the thing by himself, if he left it for too long it would break out of the container.... If it broke out of the container it would cause destruction in the city, Jack and Maddie would go and fight it because of COURSE they would and would get HURT and it would be ALL HIS FAULT.

That plus Daniel would know it was him. Would he tell Maddie and Jack what Vlad really was?

He phased into his other form momentarily, looking at the stark contrast of his blue clawed fingers against the white tiled wall. He shifted back.

Maddie and Jack may have forgiven a lot from Vlad but he doubts that they could forgive him being a ghost. Vlad felt a sudden pang of empathy for the boy. If Vlad felt this afraid of them knowing what he was then he could only imagine how hard it was for him, he LIVED with them.

Vlad took a deep breath, running his hands through his hair.

“Vlad.” Words wrote themselves in the steam of the bathroom mirror. “You can’t do this by yourself.”

Vlad tried to ignore the words, his shoulders hunched defensively. There was a sound of slight squeaking as more words wrote themselves across the bathroom mirror.

“You have to ask for help.”

Crap. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyoooooo!
> 
> Comment if you enjoyed! I love love LOVE hearing from people and it helps keep me motivated to write more! If you every wanna chat on tumblr I'm there by the same name too! I'll be back to this fic after I update some of my open homestuck fics. See you later!


	5. Further into darkness so we can someday reach the light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vlad knows he has to ask for help in order to defeat the creature he made but no longer wishes to unleash in an unexpecting town. Maddie and Danny have a heart-to-heart. There is another DND session followed by more tough choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! TW for some very graphic descriptions of medical emergencies and hospitals.

There was a flash of green light, energy hot and searing as it entered his skin and permeated every inch of his flesh, seeping deep into the marrow of his bones in an acidic wave. He stood for a moment, the world twisting and blurring, before falling to the linoleum floor in a painful twist of limbs. A high pitched squeal in his ears, the sounds of Maddie’s yell and Jack’s boots running towards him are echoed and distorted. He feels cool tiles under his cheek and his fingertips, smells the acidic and musty smell of ectoplasm.

It’s funny, normally one would have only a vague sense of where certain organs were in the body, but based on the pain radiating through him, electric and hot, he was so thoroughly aware of every square inch of himself, that at that moment he could have mapped out his entire body cavity based on the searing lines of agony. His heart where it sits in his beating staccato, his lungs on fire, his stomach twisting and churning.

He can hear Maddie crying, her voice fades in and out of his awareness as he writhes, he wants to claw the ectoplasm out from where it seeped under his skin. His limbs are jerking beyond his control as he seizes on the floor of science room 3, Jack’s hands are holding his head to keep him from hurting himself. He can see Jack above him, his face stricken and pale.

“Please! Come on Vladdie!” Vlad thinks he hears Jack say as he lays on the dirty linoleum. Jack’s hands are insistent where they cradle the back of Vlad’s head, keeping Vlad from accidentally bashing the back of his skull on the floor. He must be battering Jack’s knuckles through as the other man cushions Vlad’s head as best as he can during the seizure. “Hold on! Maddie is calling you an ambulance you’ll be ok! Hold on! Please hold on!”

Someone is screaming. He coughs and he’s not sure, but that might have been slightly glowing blood that splattered onto Jack’s front just then. 

He feels like he’s being liquified, like his bones are dissolving, being unmade atom-by-atom, like he may turn to jelly and slide through Jack’s arms and down the science room’s drain. A flailing limb manages to snag onto the front of Jack’s lapel and Vlad holds on as best as he can, anchoring himself there. He needs to tell Jack, needs to tell him that something is wrong, It didn’t work, the experiment didn’t work, something is horribly, horribly, wrong but the screaming just gets louder and-

Oh

Vlad is the one who’s screaming.

That makes sense.

It’s the last rational though Vlad has before he blacks out.

  
  


Consciousness comes in flashes, bursts of white as Vlad is wheeled down the corridor of a hospital, the overhead lights flying past him, staring down at him like judgemental eyes. Someone is barking out instructions.

“Jack?” Vlad manages to croak out, his throat is dry and every nerve screams out in pain. “Where’s Jack?” 

“He’s awake!” Someone blurry to the right of Vlad’s periphery vision exclaims, the person jogging next to the stretcher. His jaw jerked is up by a gloved hand raising his chin to shine a light in his eyes. Vlad winces away from it.

“No dilation.” Someone murmurs.

“I’m not getting anything on the EKG.” A feminine voice responds in kind.

“That doesn’t make sense, he’s obviously alive, it has to be a defective machine.”

“Heart rate is weak. EMTs said they had to restart him in the ambulance.”

“Have a crash cart ready in case he flatlines again.”

“Stay with us mister Masters!”

Words float through Vlad’s head, cottony and blurred around the edges. He knows they’re words but at the moment he can’t parse together meaning. Pain shudders through him, makes him sick to his stomach, there's blood in his mouth and Vlad is afraid.

“JACK?” Vlad screamed, looking for him on either sides of the stretcher but only seeing blurry beige walls and people in white coats. “MADDIE?”

Vlad tried to sit up, only to have three or so hands pin him back down onto the bed.

“Heart rate is up.”

“Give him a sedative!"

“Calm down young man! Calm down! You’re alright!”

“We’re getting some weird readings on the EKG! We went from no electrical activity to three times what would kill a normal human!”

“For fucks sake get rid of the machine it has to be defective!”

His arms are covered in glowing boils when he catches a glimpse of them. Nausea and pain are wracking through him. Vlad is terrified and without a single familiar face.

“MOM?” Vlad tried to fight the arms pinning him to the cot, he could feel a padded cuff being tied around his leg and anchored to the steel bar of the hospital bed, and all he can do is panic and try to pull away. “DAD?”

“Where’s that sedative?”

“I already injected him! He should be out!"

“EKG is spiking even further!”

“He’s not responding to any of the medications like he should!”

“PLEASE!” There were tear tracks down his cheeks, slightly glowing blood spilling from his mouth and dripping to the sheet under him as he sobbed and tried to curl away from the hands pulling his limbs straight and tying padded cuffs around them. “I JUST WANT TO GO HOME!”

Vlad screamed, a shock of pink energy bursting the lights above him, nurses and doctors yelping and putting their arms and clipboards above their heads to shield them from falling glass, the hospital plunged into darkness. The machines he had been hooked to smoldering and hot to the touch.

Vlad passed out.   
  


 

The pain didn’t stop. None of the medications that the doctors gave him worked. How did they not know what was wrong with him? Shouldn’t doctors know these kinds of things? What’s happening to him? Why does it feel like he is being being dissolved from the inside out?

Hi parents visit. His mother is clearly wearing her coat over her pajamas, having gotten the news late that night. Her hair is loose from its usual braid. She’s crying as she holds his hand, thick gloves and a hospital mask over her face. His father is on Vlad’s other side, his large hands stretching the rubber hospital gloves, whispering a prayer in Russian over Vlad’s bedside.

Vlad could tell how much of a strain it was for them, the sleepless nights they were enduring, but he was in pain, weak and afraid and that meant he had to be selfish. He kept them with him for as long as he could, but he knew they would have to go back. It was harvest season and there were hungry goats and cows in the paddocks.

His mother leaned over his hospital bed, pressing her masked face to his forehead like a kiss, assuring him that they would be back in a day or two.

Vlad couldn’t help but feel that pressing terror when they left, his mind partially clouded with sedatives and burning with pain, odd green boils across the majority of his skin. He spent most of his time in a doze, his mind clearing and blurring in time with the hourly shots of medication into his IV bag. Every once in a while a doctor would come to scowl at the machines and then down at Vlad, ordering the medication to be switched to a different dose or swapped altogether. Sometimes he was wheeled to another part of the hospital by a pair of nurses in full rubber suits for a litany of odd tests that nobody told Vlad the results of, only that they left the doctors confused and frustrated. It was around what Vlad thought was the second, or maybe third day, that a nurse prodded him awake to tell him that he had a visitor.

The nurse left and Jack came into the room then, the big bulky man delicately holding a ceramic vase, a couple of purple hyacinths leaning out of it. Vlad couldn’t see the majority of his face with the surgical mask he wore to cover his mouth, but his eyes looked tired and there was a slump to his shoulders.

The way Vlad was through, tired, in pain, and afraid, he couldn’t muster up a single scrap of sympathy. He had been poked, prodded, mouth swabbed, blood taken, scrapings taken from his skin as samples, tests upon painful tests performed each day. He couldn’t move from the bed and Vlad had a sneaking suspicion that the doctors were waiting for him to die, based on the glances they kept sending him, the slight widening of their eyes when they came to work their shifts and were told Vlad was still alive. 

He knew that none of them could really see Vlad being able to recover from this mystery sickness, and nobody wanted to be the one to tell him.

Being twenty and facing the very real possibility of a long and drawn out painful death changed some things.

Vlad was going to die and it was all Jack’s fault.

“Vlad…” Jack set the vase on Vlad’s side-table. He looked over at where he laid in the hospital bed, Vlad firmly not looking at him. Jack stood awkwardly above him, his hands clasped together and fiddling with his rubber gloves. “...How are you?” He asked gently.

Vlad knew that he had to have been a sight, green welts, messy sweaty hair, IV in his arm, thin hospital gown stained with whatever it was that oozed from the boils on his skin.

Vlad huffed out a humorless laugh, regretting it when it made a sharp twinge of pain flare in his gut. He turned to Jack, his brows furrowed and a harsh look in his eyes that would have been scary for the tears welling up there.

“How am I doing?” Vlad hissed “HOW AM I DOING?”

The machine registering Vlad’s heart rate sped up significantly. “I’M DYING JACK!” Tears were running down Vlad’s face now, his jaw clenched and his hair wild. “I’M TWENTY YEARS OLD AND I’M DYING!”

“Vlad…” Jack’s own blue eyes were filling with tears as well. He reached for Vlad’s hand “You’re not dying you’re going to be ok.”

“NO!” Vlad pulled his hand away. “Don’t touch me! Don’t FUCKING touch me! You ruin everything you touch!” Vlad pressed his face into the pillow, breathy hissed out sobs escaping through clenched teeth and tears blotting onto the sheets. “You ruined me Jack! You ruined me!”

“She said it wasn’t ready Jack.” Vlad’s voice was impossibly tiny, breathy and full of hurt where he curled in on himself in the hospital bed. “She told you to wait why did you press the button?”

Jack hovered over Vlad, his hands out like he wanted to hug him but knowing it wouldn’t be welcome or safe. “Vlad I’m so sorry I didn’t-”

“NO!” Vlad gave him a glare, fury pooling in his chest, hot and sharp and vindictive. “GET AWAY FROM ME! YOU’LL JUST KILL ME QUICKER! YOU RUIN EVERYTHING!” It made him take the vase Jack had put on his nightstand and hurl it at the other man.

It missed Jack by a few inches, the ceramic bursting apart where it hit the door frame. Jack’s eyes were wide with hurt, backing away from the hospital bed like Vlad was some wild rabid creature.

“Get out Jack.” Vlad hissed, pain shooting through him, his hair wild and tangled in his face. He looked up to pin Jack with a heated stare. “I SAID GET OUT!”

Jack backed out of the room, hand over his mouth, hurt and horror in his eyes. 

Vlad saw Maddie’s face in the small oval window of the hospital room for a moment as Jack left, her hands to her mouth and tears in her eyes. She was there for only a moment before she dashed away, leaving Vlad well and truly alone.

In the deafening silence that followed, the only noise in the room was Vlad’s own harsh and labored breathing he hugged his knees, curling in on himself in the center of the bed. He stared at the smashed vase and the broken hyacinths on the floor.

It was there that Vlad, broken and in pain, told himself his very first lie. The first lie of thousands that would wrap around his heart and lead him into his own personal and tailored version of reality. A narrative that would slowly let him rationalize and cater to every one his worse instincts and impulses. Going down further and further, until he became something that the version of him now in this hospital bed wouldn’t even recognize. 

“Whatever.” Vlad whispered to the broken hyacinths, something hard and poisonous lodging by his heart. “I’m better off without them anyways.”

He closed his eyes and he was pulled into an uneasy sleep.

 

 

Stifling darkness. He couldn’t breathe, something hot and heavy and soft that pushed him down, down down.... Vlad struggled against the oppressive darkness, trying to free himself, he opened his eyes to-

-find a pair of grey slitted eyes staring back at him.

“Mrow.” Jack the cat announced from where the massive fluffy monstrosity had been sleeping sprawled across Vlad’s face.

Vlad growled, pushing the fluffy thing down off his face in order to breathe, taking a grateful gasp of breath. He looked around the large stylishly decorated master bedroom of his mansion, the fresh out of a home magazine decor somewhat hampered by the various wine bottles on the floor, the messy bed, and the two mismatched cats watching him like sentries.

Maddie the cat was on the pillow next to Vlad, eying the other cat and the whole situation in that sort of haughty disapproving way cats have mastered. Her blue eyes seemed to regard Vlad with a motherly resignation as if to say “See what you did? You did this to yourself by bringing this other cat here. I had no part of this foolishness.”

“Jack!” Vlad reprimanded, picking up the cat and lifting him up over himself, bringing the cat about eye-level in order to give him a reproachful glare. “You just about killed me!”

“Mrow.” Jack answered back, and Vlad liked to imagine perhaps that the meow sounded contrite. Jack the cat licked his nose and started to purr like a motorboat under Vlad’s hands, his tongue out and his eyes crossed.

Vlad sighed with something between resignation and amusement. He set the cat down on his chest and gave it a scratch behind the ears. Jack the cat cuddled up under his neck like a rich woman’s fur collar, his purrs ratcheting up a notch. This of course made Maddie the cat jealous and the white cat whined and laid across the top of Vlad’s head like a furry russian hat demanding to be petted. This went on for a while until Vlad had to extricate himself from the bed, pushing Jack the cat to the side and hissing with pain when he pulled on the hair trapped under Maddie.

“You both are terrible.” Vlad told both cats. 

The cats just looked up at him without comprehension and mewed.

Vlad pulled himself out of bed with a groan, putting on his bathrobe and trudging to the kitchen, both cats following behind him like ducklings.

He put a scoop of kibble in each of their bowls and put on a pot of coffee. The pot bubbled to life and the smell of fine colombian roast wafted through the kitchen.

Vlad took a mug from the cupboard and poured his first cup, inhaling the smell of fresh coffee before taking a grateful sip. He stood in his kitchen, holding the warm cup in his chilly hands, staring into nothing and trying to remember the details of his dream before he woke, but not finding anything solid, just anger and fear and the vague notion of something valuable being lost.

Before Vlad could muse too further on the subject, a scroll popped into existence in front of his face, nothingness suddenly congealing into matter and dropping onto the counter in front of him.

Vlad sighed. “And it had been such a nice morning…” He took another sip of coffee before setting down his mug and picking up the scroll.

“Ding dong, bitch.” The scroll announced in overly loopy letters to fine and elegant that it was hilariously pompous. “Time to wake up and deal with the elephant in the room! Or more specifically, the monster you’re keeping in cage in a secret lab under your house.”

Vlad winced before huffing out a long drawn-out sigh. “You couldn’t even let me have my morning in peace, could you?”

Another scroll had a less polite entrance, wapping Vlad on the back of his head before tumbling onto the counter and unfurling. “Oh fuck off.” The scroll read “You have a giant ghost monster in your basement and you’re doing  _ nothing _ about it!”

“I am NOT doing nothing!” Vlad, the middle aged man wearing a bathrobe and slippers in his kitchen drinking a cup of coffee protested “I’m-” He paused for a moment, picking up his coffee cup and taking another sip, his eyes narrowing as he tried to think of a good lie. Maybe if he stayed in his kitchen and pretended his lab didn’t exist it would go away. “-Strategizing.”

“Right.” The next scroll read “Nice try. Just get your ass up and go to your lab and deal with what you’ve done you big baby.”

Vlad sighed, deep and full of resignation as he picked up his coffee cup and headed towards the lab, pulling the Packers trophy in his living room and trudging down the stairs, flanked on either side by his cats who followed him into the dark.

Vlad leaned against the work table in his lab, bare skinny legs ending in bunny slippers peeking out from his robe, watching in dismayed silence, coffee cup in hand, as the cage bolted to the floor of his lab rocked back and forth, straining the chains and bolts keeping him in place.

“I’m honestly surprised that it’s held this long.” Vlad mused, eyebrows quirked up as he took another sip of coffee. 

Behind him Jack the cat pawed a beaker off the table and watched it shatter below. Maddie hid behind Vlad’s legs, watching the box warily, she mewed up at Vlad.

There was a sound of a scroll manifesting and Vlad held out a hand, catching the scroll without taking his eyes off of the box.

“I thought we agreed that you were going to ask for help.” The scroll somehow managed to convey a thick layer of judgement through the words.

Vlad groaned, rubbing a hand down his face. “No YOU decided I needed help.”

“That’s because you do, dingus.” The scroll afterwards read.

“Oh you say it like it’s so easy!” Vlad put up his hands. “Who exactly would I go to for help? Hmm? The guys in white? The  _ boy _ ? It’s preposterous I-”

The next scroll rocketed into Vlad’s face. “NO SHIT-HEAD! YOU HAPPEN TO KNOW SOME GHOST HUNTERS DON’T YOU? A COUPLE OF BEST FRIENDS WHO HAVE A LAB FULL OF GHOST HUNTING EQUIPMENT??? DOES THAT RING A BELL?”

“OH BECAUSE THAT WILL GO OVER WELL!” Vlad screamed back. He clutched his hands together, mockingly innocent. “Oh hi Jack! Hi Maddie! You know how I just came back into your lives and we’re tentatively trying to build our friendship back up after twenty years of bad blood? Well it turns out that I have a WEIRD SECRET LABORATORY with a GIANT GHOST MONSTER in a box! Please be a couple of dears and help me get rid of it!” 

Vlad put a hand to his chest, his eyes wide and his teeth gritted. “They’ll figure out WHAT I AM!”

Another scroll came into being, Vlad plucked it from the air before it could do anything like hit him in the face again. “Well you’re going to have to tell them some time.”

Vlad scoffed. “Oh like that will go over well!” He put his hands on his hips. “Jack! Maddie! Big news! I’m a ghost! And not just any ghost! The one working to ruin your lives for years! Haha! Well the more you know!” He groaned and put a hand to his temple “Jack may not have tried to kill me all those years ago in the accident, but he might actually this time when they find out…”

Another scroll popped into being. “Do you really think so little of them?”

“Yes!” Vlad looked ashamed even as he said it. “Well no… I am an evil ghost you know, it’s in their job description.” 

“I thought you were trying to fix the whole  **_EVIL_ ** ghost thing? Also, they’re also your _ friends _ .” The next scroll countered. “A bit of a different job description, one that sort of involves helping you when you’re in a bind.”

“Not with this sort of thing.” Vlad looked away, swishing his coffee in his cup. “And if I want to keep their friendship I can’t ever let them know.”

“And what sort of friendship is that? Something made on lies.”

“The kind I get to KEEP!” Vlad countered, had tightening around his coffee cup, shoulders hunched. “And not lies….” He waved a hand vaguely “Just…. omissions.” Vlad reasoned to himself.

“You’re doing that thing where you lie to yourself to try and make something bad you’re about to do seem not as terrible.” The next scroll put it bluntly.

Vlad sighed. No wonder none of the deity’s disciples stayed, the truth is a pain in the ass. 

“Well it’s too late!” Vlad hissed “If I was going to tell them it would have been twenty years ago in the hospital.”

“You know you’re right.” The next scroll that appeared stated. “Twenty years ago would have been the best time to tell the truth. You know what would be the second best time? RIGHT NOW.”

Vlad groaned, covering his mouth with a hand, expression stricken. “I can’t. I just can’t I-”

“Vlad.” This next scroll seemed quieter somehow. “I know that you don’t want to lose them, but if you do nothing this creature  _ will _ get out.”

Vlad’s lips thinned. He winced, looking towards the shivering and shaking box. He looked up at where he imagined the Deity of Truth could see him. “Do you know…” He whispered quietly “How they will…”

“How they’ll react?” The next scroll finished that thought for him. “I don’t know. Humans are like that, stupid free will and all. I do know though, that if you do nothing this creature will get out, it will get out and it will hurt people.”

There was a pause on the paper, like reticence on the part of the author. “Maybe even the two people you actually care about. Now even if they react badly, isn’t keeping them safe is more important?”

Vlad closed his eyes resolutely, taking a deep breath. “Alright.” He whispered. “I’ll try to find a time to tell them and...and ask for their help…” It felt like standing on the edge of a cliff, not knowing if there's sharp rocks or safe water below as you dive in.

The creature inside of the steel box suddenly threw themselves to one side, tipping the metal husk and straining the far chain that held it bolted to the floor, the metal shrieking and straining before the foot-long bolt was forcibly pulled from the metal plating of the laboratory’s floor.

Vlad yelped as the chain whipped towards him, becoming intangible just in time before the chain sliced through his midsection, smashing the rest of the beakers behind him. Maddie yowled, scrambling up a bookshelf on the far side of the room, Jack simply sat there dumbfounded but unperturbed, glass shards stuck in the thick mass of his fur.

Vlad rose from the floor, surrounded by pink energy, his hands and eyes glowing, his bathrobe and the ears of his bunny slippers whipping in the wind around him. “Alright enough of that!”

A section of the metal box bulged, the corner peeling back long enough for a slitted green eye to look back at Vlad, the pupil dilating to a lethal slit at the sight of him, the creature within roaring. 

“No! No no no!” Vlad chastised, his pink ghostly energy encasing the box and pushing back on the creature trying to escape, pushing a tentacle back into the box peevishly. “None of that! No!”

Vlad strained, pushing back against the metal that was curling and peeling like a tuna can. The roars becoming louder, Vlad sweating, his hair wild around his face and-

His phone rang.

Vlad brought the phone close to his face, the electronic device held aloft by his pink ghost energy, orbiting slowly around his head as he worked. “Hello?”

Maddie was in her kitchen, She had her pajamas on, leaning against the counter, a coffee cup in her hands. “Hey Vlad, is this a good time to talk?”

“Oh!” Vlad’s power surged from him, pushing back against the creature who desperately scrambled against the box. “Good morning Maddie. What do I owe the pleasure?”

Maddie’s brows furrowed as she listened to the sound of animalistic roars and the screech of metal on the other side of the line. “....Is this a good time to talk?”

“Oh absolutely.” Vlad lied on instinct, another chain popped free from where it was bolted to the floor and Vlad ducked before it could hit him. 

Maddie raised a brow. “What’s that sound?”

“Oh just the TV.” Vlad answered back, tone bordering on blasé as he focused his energy on the chain, making it pull tight and force the box to be flush with the floor again. “Here let me turn it down.”

Vlad put his fingers against the microphone and turned to the monstrosity currently trying to break out of his lab. “EXCUSE YOU I AM ON THE PHONE!”

The box only shook more fervently, the roars growing louder.

“Rude.” Vlad hissed, encasing the box in a bubble of energy, the roaring suddenly muted. He turned back to his phone. “Sorry about that Maddie, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Well-” Maddie turned to her husband, Jack was next to her, an eager smile on his face, waving her on like a little kid whose mom was on the phone arranging a playdate. “I was thinking of setting up a regular Night for DND to happen.”

“Oh that’s nice.” Vlad summoned ten or so clones, six of them pulling on the chains that came loose, three of them for each chain, while the other four put the bolts back into place. One clone was sliced in half by a chain whipping by and Vlad quickly made another one. He was straining with the effort it took to maintain the sound-proof bubble around the creature. “When were you thinking?”

Jack was looking at Maddie excitedly, his shoulder hunched, his fists up and his eyes shining.

“Well it’s Saturday, that would work a lot better than in the middle of the week like last time.”

“Oh I agree.” Vlad told her mildly, not exactly listening as ghostly energy pulsed from the split in the steel box, pushing against Vlad’s own energy, cracks beginning to form in the pink bubble. 

“So….” Maddie smiled, Jack nearly over the moon with excitement next to her, his hands over his mouth so Vlad wouldn’t hear the high-pitched excited squeal that threatened to come out. “When should we expect you tonight?”

That made Vlad turn to his phone, he tried to focus on shoring up the barrier but more cracks kept forming. “Tonight?”

Maddie snorted, taking another sip of coffee. “Yes tonight. It’s Saturday Vlad.”

“Right right.” Vlad answered back, eying the cracking barrier as he searched his work station, pushing papers off his desk in his haste. “Sorry my dear I would forget my own head if it wasn’t attached to me.”

Another jerk from the box sent another chain flying, beheading the four clones holding it a remarkable moment of ironic timing. Vlad summoned another four clones, feeling his abilities stretch to the limit as he struggled to maintain the bubble and control the clones.

“How about early afternoon? Perhaps two or three?” Vlad asked, picking up a syringe from his workstation triumphantly, it was obscenely large, something one would expect from someone who worked with angry elephants on a day-to-day basis. He found a mostly unbroken beaker and a couple vials of fluid. He squinted at the labels before uncorking it with his teeth and pouring one and then the other into the beaker, the mixture glowing a dull pulsing purple before he poured in another vial and with a puff of smoke it turned a shocking acid green. “We can order pizza as the night goes on.”

“Oh that sounds nice.” Maddie mused, swishing her coffee cup in her hands. “Our treat ok?”

“Oh no no.” Vlad argued as he poured the mixture into the syringe, three more of his clones dying behind him, cut apart gruesomely, screaming in pain, before fading into nothingness. “I insist on buying, I am imposing on you after all.”

“Oh please.” Maddie countered “You’re OUR guest.”

Vlad chuckled, dodging another chain flung in his direction, knocking the empty beaker and vials off the table he had been working on. He screwed the syringe onto a long pole, a massive version of the type animal control officers use to subdue rabid animals. “Oh please, it’s a couple of pizzas, let me do something nice.”

“Fine.” Maddie rolled her eyes. “But we’re buying the chips and ice cream.”

Vlad smiled, hefting the syringe-tipped pole. “Well if you must, then I suppose you must.”

Maddie smiled. “I must, or else you’ll get a fat head about it.”

“Can’t have that now can we?” Vlad watched a long crack form along the barrier, he readied his syringe.

Maddie laughed. “Alright I’ve kept for for long enough, see you this afternoon!”

“Bye.” Vlad clicked the ‘End Call’ button just in time as the last of the barrier ruptured.

Ghostly green energy tore through the lab in waves, pushing Vlad back and destroying the rest of the remaining clones.

“ALRIGHT YOU KNOW WHAT?” Vlad hoisted the syringe on the pole. “IT’S RUDE TO INTERRUPT PEOPLE ON THE PHONE!”

The ghostly wail of the creature reverberated off the steel wall, otherworldly and haunting, like the whispers of a long dead god in the back of your mind. It was a sound that would have sent a normal human careening into madness.

“Oh DO shut up.” Vlad intoned, bored and having none of it whatsoever. He shoved the pole and syringe into the damaged slit on the steel box , luckily he could feel that it hit flesh. There was a loud roaring gurgle, more flashes of green light, the box shaking from side-to-side and-

Thankfully, the thrashing ceased, the creature quieting where they were held in their prison, a tentacle reaching out of the box going limp.

Vlad sighed out a breath, relieved beyond words. He pulled the pole out from the cage and found that the tip had been dissolved entirely in what looked like acid.

Jack the cat tottered over to stand next to Vlad, they were much fluffier than they had been before, the mass of fluff protecting them from the shrapnel that had been flying around the room, bits of glass and metal poking out from the fuzz like a puffer fish. Vlad sighed and picked him up gingerly, shaking off the fluffy cat to try and get all of the glass shards off of him.

“It’s not going to hold Vlad.” The whiteboard warned from the other side of the wall. 

Vlad sighed.”...I know…” He put Jack the cat down and picked up his welder’s helmet and a blowtorch. “I’ll patch up the box for now and ask Jack tonight.” He flipped down the steel welder’s helmet, an odd look when combined with his robe and slippers. “But after the game…” He said quietly. “...I want to savor having friends for one last night.”

“You don’t know how they’ll react Vlad.” The words printed themselves on the board.

Vlad flipped up his helmet to give the whiteboard a glare. “Neither do you.”

It seemed that the deity of truth didn’t have an answer for that, and Vlad went back to his work.   
  


 

 

Danny, secret teenage superhero, foiler of evil plans and savior of not only the city but probably the entire world at one point or another, was currently powerless to stop the tide of evil currently happening in his own goddamn house.

“Danny enough.” Maddie pulled out a tray of cookies from the oven. “He’s coming over to play DND, you can either play with us, or your character will get hit over the head by a goblin and we’ll play without you.”

Maddie handed Danny one of the fresh cookies. Each one of the sugar cookies were patterned with a cartoon version of Vlad’s DND character, or as Danny knew him, Vlad plasmius wearing a wizard’s hat. Danny was both filled with a seething kind of rage and begrudgingly impressed by his mother’s baking abilities. He bit off the cookie’s head spitefully and felt a fraction better.

“Ok I get why Dad would be suckered into this-” Danny pointed at his mother with the torso of the cookie “but YOU?”

Maddie sighed, using a spatula to take the rest of the cookies off the tray “Danny-” She warned.

“I mean the FIRST time I met him-” Danny frowned, crossing his arms. “He-”

“Danny-”

Danny winced, his stomach turning at the memory. “I mean he just looked at you like-”

“I KNOW!” Maddie slammed down the tray of cookies. “FOR F-” Maddie stopped herself, swallowing the f-bomb she almost said “Don’t you think I  _ know _ that?” Her mouth was pressed into a harsh line. She put a hand to her heart and gave Danny a meaningful look. “I’m the one who went through it remember? I fully know how awful it was, ok?”

Danny and Maddie stared each other down for a moment.

Danny looked away with a sigh. “I just...Mom I guess I just don’t know how you could forgive him after what he’s done…”

“I know Danny…” Maddie whispered. She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed for a moment. “I haven’t quite forgiven him yet to tell you the truth.” She chewed on her bottom lip.

Danny looked back at her. “Then WHY?”

Maddie sighed, she looked down and picked a bit of hard crust from the cookie sheet. “He was my friend too Danny, that’s why what he did hurt so much. He was as much my friend as he was your father’s. One of my two best friends and-” Her brows furrowed “-and when the accident happened-”

For a moment Maddie was back there again in science room three, Vlad falling to the floor and screaming, seizing, his eyes rolling into the back of his head as green blisters bubbled on his skin. Crying in the waiting room with Jack’s arm around her shoulder. The days before they’d let them see him. The last glance she had of him through the the window of the hospital room door, his hair in his face and his cheeks wet with tears.

Maddie’s eyes were red, her mouth pinched with the effort it took not to cry. “We messed up Danny. We really messed up.”

Danny’s heart broke when he saw the tears in his mom’s eyes “Mom…” he whispered. “Look what happened to him was shitty but...You can’t blame yourself for what someone else did with their life…”

Maddie huffed out a laugh, sniffling and scrubbing at a tear that had trailed down her cheek. “Since when did you get so wise?” 

She shook her head, her expression serious when she turned to her son. “If something happened to Sam or Tucker, and they suddenly started acting like…” She waved her hand vaguely, not quite able to convey whatever it was that Vlad had become. She sighed. “Wouldn’t you do anything you could to get them back? Would you ever stop hoping that maybe….” Maddie swallowed. She stared off into nothing, deep in thought.

Danny huffed, his arms crossed as he stared down at the floor. “No...I probably wouldn’t…” He acquiesced quietly. He gave his mother a look. “Just….” He stepped forward suddenly and  hugged her. “I’ll kick his ass if he tries something ok?”

Maddie smiled and wrapped her arms around her son in return. She snorted. “Awww….” She pressed a kiss to his cheek and patted his back. “My big brave boy.”

Danny snorted and leaned away. “Mom.” He giggled “Gross.”

Maddie rolled her eyes. The doorbell rang and Maddie swatted him away. “Go see who it is ok?”

Danny trotted over to the front door, leaving his mom to putter about in the kitchen. He opened the door only to find Vlad Masters, the man seemingly prim and well-dressed in his regular suit, but there was something haggard about the dark circles under his eyes and the fact that the very end of his pony tail seemed to be singed.

“Sup Vlad.” Danny leaned in the doorway, cutting Vlad off from entering just yet. “Funny seeing you here, shouldn’t you be at home talking to your cats?”

Vlad smiled back, his eyebrows quirking up. “Shouldn’t you be talking to your dog? Oh wait!” Vlad gasped, putting a hand to his mouth, his shoulder popped up. “I forgot your parents don’t allow you to have pets.” He added with a cheery grin.

Danny scowled at him. “No thanks I like having a loving family better.” 

Ow, that one stung a bit.  Vlad gave him a condescending smile. “Aww… he’s cranky. Maybe you should have your afternoon nap? That usually makes toddlers feel better.”

Danny gave him an unimpressed look. “Don’t get too cocky here, old man, or I might have to punch you before the mobility van comes to take you back to the nursing home.”

“I will not be intimidated by what’s practically an infant.”

“This INFANT will kick your ass.”

“After naptime and before your curfew, that is?”

“That is if your arthritis doesn’t keep you out of the fight.”

“Child.”

“Geezer.”

The fight devolved into Vlad and Danny glaring at each other testily, growling under their breaths.

There was a sudden honk and the Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle rolled into the driveway.

“VLADDIE!” Jack bounded out of the vehicle, shopping bags bundled under each arm and one balanced on his head. “IT’S GOOD TO SEE YOU!”

Vlad gave him a look. “Jack do you need help carrying those or-”

“HA!” Jack waved him off with one hand, trudging up the front stairs. “I CAN’T WAIT FOR TONIGHT’S GAME! COME ON COME IN!”

Before Vlad could protest Vlad was swooped up and thrown over one of Jack’s shoulders, Danny moving to the side as his dad barreled into the house like freight train, carrying one gangly surprised passenger.

“And this is your chair!” Jack set Vlad down at one of the dining room chairs, his hair frazzled and his eyes wide. Once again a purple wizard’s hat was set on Vlad’s head.

“Someday…” Vlad whispered to himself direly from underneath the purple velvet “I will burn this hat.

Danny had just closed the door again when the doorbell rang. He opened the door again only to see Tucker on the front stoop.

Tucker was grinning, he unzipped his hoodie so that the people inside could see his t-shirt that read ‘Bard to the bone’. “What’s UP my party of adventurers!” He wiggled his eyebrows “Are we ready to kill some undead more than we usually do?”

Jack pumped his fists. “WOO! YEAH!”

Danny closed the door again. “God you’re so embarrassing.”

Just as the door clicked shut, the doorbell rang again. Danny sighed and opened the door again.

There didn’t seem to be anyone out there. Danny frowned and looked from side-to side. Was it darker then it was a minute ago? Was a rainstorm coming?

There was a strike of lightning from the suddenly darkened sky and a shadowy figure appeared on the railing of the front porch, their dark cloak fluttering in the breeze, a raven perched on their shoulder. The figure stared down at Danny with bright purple eyes. “HELLO HUMAN.” The figure growled.

Danny looked up at her, not affected in the least. “Hey Sam.”

The figure leapt past Danny and into the house, a shadowy apparition in black velvet and faux eco-friendly pleather. There was a metallic ‘shink’ and an expandable scythe unfolded in her hands.

“IT IS I!” The figure struck a pose, ready to pounce, one hand on the carpet and the other hand carrying the scythe. “LADY RAVEENA! HARBINGER OF DEATH! DISCIPLE OF THE LEAGUE OF ASSASSINS! I WILL HAVE THE BLOODY DISMEMBERED HEAD OF THE ORC KING IN RETRIBUTION FOR THE-”

“Oh hi Sam, hi Tucker!” Maddie walked into the dining room with a tray. “I made cookies.”

Lady Raveena, harbinger of death and disciple of the league of assassins popped up from the carpet. “Oh sweet! Cookies!” She trotted over to the table, pulling down her hood.

Jack grinned at her. “Nice costume!”

Sam smiled “Thanks! I put a lot of time into it. The scythe is a prop and I bought the fake bird online.” Sam pressed a button on the foot of the fake crow and a speaker on the little beast’s belly emitted a variety of spooky sounds like lightning cracks and cawing.

Jack clapped, obviously enthralled.

Danny sat next to Tucker. “Ok I take it back, you're not the most embarassing friend anymore.”

Tucker picked up one of the cookies. “Awww!” He put a hand to his cheek “They’re WITTLE VLADS!”

Sam picked up one of the cookies to inspect it. “How did you do all the colors?”

Maddie grinned. “Different colored doughs!”

Vlad gave her a look. “Aww! You spent all this time on little ol’ me?”

Maddie rolled her eyes and swatted him in the back of the head. “Oh shut up.” There was a blush on her cheeks “I’ll make a treat themed for everyone’s character as the weeks go on.”

“Cool!” Tucker immediately bit off the head of his cookie, crunching happily.

Sam looked at Vlad, staring him down as she bit off the arm of her cookie. “You will not feel the sweet embrace of death for quite some time.” She bit the other arm off slowly, grinning all the while.

Vlad sweated in his seat.

“Alright!” Maddie sat down in her seat, pulling up the cardboard dungeon master’s screen. She thumbed through her dungeon master’s notebook. “Where were we...Ah! In the dungeon, about to go head-to-head with some undead monsters!”

“The skeletal remains of the dungeon guards stand before you, green glow surrounding their desiccated bones as they pull themselves upright. Their eyes glow a ghostly green. They screech at you, their jaws hanging open at unnatural angles. Roll for initiative.”

“Uhh…” Danny looked down at his character sheet. “Roll for what now?”

Maddie leaned over to tap a bubble on the page. “Right here sweetpea, it’s labeled.”

“So…. three?” Danny asked.

“No roll the d20.” Maddie guided.

Danny eyed his dice. “Uh...this one?”

“No the d20.”

Danny’s hand moved to another one of the dice.

“No that’s a d6.”

Danny’s hand moved to another die.

“That’s a d8.”

Danny’s hand moved to another die. “This one?” His fingers hovered over the d12. 

“OH FOR-” Maddie growled “THE BIG ONE!”

“Right right!” Danny finally picked up the right die. “I knew that.”

“Don’t forget to roll for your dog too.” Maddie guided.

“What?” Danny’s brow furrowed. “I have to roll for the dog too?”

“They’re a separate thing, you can roll to guide them on your turn but they do what they do.”

Danny grumbled, going to the separate sheet for his dog.

Eventually the turn order was decided, Danny’s dog somehow rolled higher than him.

“Losing to a dog, huh?” Vlad asked.

Danny coughed, using his character sheet to subtly block from his parent’s view the middle finger that he sent Vlad’s way.

In the dungeon, the heroes readied their weapons. Jahackan Bonefist raised his sword, Vlad raised his hands, glowing with magical energy, Raveena raised her scythe, Danny had his bow and arrows, his loyal dog growling menacingly at his feet, Tucker hoisted his lute menacingly.

“You can’t hoist a lute menacingly.” Vlad complained where he sat at the dining room table. “I mean it’s a lute.”

Maddie turned to Tucker. “Roll an intimidation check.”

Tucker tossed his d20, peering over to read the number. “18!”

“That lute is super menacing you have no idea.” Maddie whispered. “This is one of the scariest lutes you’ve ever come into contact with. A shudder runs down all of your spines.”

In the dungeon the adventures felt a cold chill at the sight of the stringed instrument held in the bard’s hands, darkness coalescing around the bard.

The Merry Mister Tucker strummed his lute. “I cast vicious mockery!”

Maddie took a note on a piece of paper. “Alright what do you say to them?”

“HEY SKELETONS!” In the dungeon The Merry Mister Tucker pointed a finger at the troupe of skeletons advancing towards them, the shambling corpses gazing at him with cold unseeing eye sockets. The Bard grinned maliciously. “Y’ALL UGLY!”

Maddie rolled some dice on the other side of the cardboard screen and sighed. “Ok they failed their wisdom saving throw so they are super hurt emotionally.”

In the dungeon one of the skeletal guards put a bony hand to their chest with hurt. A single glowing green ectoplasmic tear rolled down their cheek. Another one of the skeletons patted them on the back consolingly.

“I cast magic missile.” Vlad announced. “How many are their again?”

“Four.” Maddie answered before ducking behind her cardboard screen, only her eyes and the top of her head visible as she waggled her eyebrows. “FOR NOW!”

“I’m going to send the three darts after the three closest skeletons then.” Vlad mused.

“Alright. Magic missile has an automatic hit so roll damage.”

Vlad rolled some dice. “Six, four and three.”

The skeletons in the dungeon were suddenly pierced by darts made of glowing energy, piercing them in the head and torso. They groaned, chips of bone falling from them but still advancing forward.

Jackahan the barbarian prince swung valiantly at the undead creatures, his muscles flaring, charging in with a great roar. Unfortunately though, he rolled low and hit the wall instead. All the skeletons were pretty confused about this and just kinda stared at him for a bit.

Maddie peeked at the map. “Ok it’s the monster’s turn now. Danny and Jack you guys are heading up the front so im sorry but they’ll hit you first.”

The skeletons screeched, their swords drawn, they swung at the adventurers. One sliced at the barbarian with a broad sword, the other at the young human, knocking him down to the ground with a stab to the shoulder.

“Ow.” Danny frowned down at his little character. “How much damage?”

“Just four, he rolled low.” Maddie shrugged “Jack you take six.”

“Gotcha!” Jack marked it on his character sheet.

“Alright.” Danny mused. “I hit him back.”

Maddie huffed “It’s not your turn yet.”

“What!” Danny threw up his hands “So I’m just supposed to stay here and let him stab me for a while?”

“You can stab him back when it’s your turn honey.” Maddie sighed.

“MOM LET ME STAB THEM!” Danny whined, flopping over onto the table.

“WAIT. YOUR. TURN. TO. STAB.” Maddie had her hands to her hips.

Danny groaned, leaning back in his seat dramatically.

“My turn right?” Sam asked. “I’m going to climb Jackahan, use him as a springboard and then use the momentum to slice through the nearest skeleton.”

Maddie shrugged “Roll acrobatics.”

Sam tossed her dice and winced. “Uh….even with my bonus…. I got an eight.”

The Lady Raveena climbed onto the barbarian warrior Jackahan Bonefist. She stood on his shoulders, towering over the battlefield, her cape fluttering in the sparse wind of the dungeon, her crow cawing dramatically as she gazed down at them with pitiless eyes.

“Unclean creatures of the night.” The Lady Raveena menaced her scythe at the skeletons. “You are but a minor inconvenience before I fulfill my destiny of slaying the orc king. Rejoice, for your demise shall be leading towards a goal that is beyond all of us.”

She jumped from his shoulders, her cloak fluttering around her like a bird in flight and-

She tripped on Jackahan’s shoulder armor and fell the full six feet of his height face-first onto the stone floor, landing on the other side of the skeletons.

The skeletons turned to look at Jackahan and Vlad, their bony brows arched.

The barbarian and the sorcerer just shrugged.

“NOW” Danny put his hands to the table. “NOW DO I GET TO STAB THEM?”

“Actually your dog rolled higher than you so-” Maddie shrugged.

Danny sighed. “Fine.” He tossed his dice. “Go get em’ buddy.” He leaned over to read the number and winced.

Danny’s large dog growled at the skeletons. They lunged towards the intruder and-

The dog was immediately knocked to the side, thrown into the stony wall of the dungeon. They whimpered their ears flattened to their head and limping piteously.

Danny gaped at his mom, his brows furrowed with indignation. “....oh they’re dying super hard now.”

Maddie nodded “Well now’s the time for it, it's finally your turn to do some stabbing.”

In the dungeon Danny yelled, pulling out a dagger. He rushed the nearest skeleton, stabbing them through the ribcage, tearing them in completely in half in a fit of rage.

Maddie knocked over one of the skeletons on the map. “First kill of the night.”

Danny pointed down at the little cardboard token denoting the skeleton enemy, his brows furrowed, his teeth gritted and breathing heavily. “THIS IS WHY YOU DON’T TOUCH MY DOG!”

Tucker scooted his chair away slightly from Danny.

In the dungeon The Merry Mister Tucker twirled his lute, holding it to his mouth like a microphone. He pointed at one of the skeletons. “BOY YOU SO UGLY-” He grinned and waggled his eyebrows “-THAT WHEN YOUR MOM DROPPED YOU OFF AT SCHOOL SHE GOT A TICKET FOR LITTERING!”

The skeleton gasped, a bony hand to their cheek, their jaw bone hanging open. A green ectoplasmic tear rolled down their cheek and with a puff of green smoke they disintegrated back into a pile of bones.

Sam’s eyebrows were quirked up. “You made fun of that guy so hard he DIED.”

“That’s the power of the BARD baby!” Tucker dabbed. “WOO!”

The next kills went to Jackahan and Lady Raveena, the rogue’s fall putting her in an advantageous position to hack at the skeletons from behind.

“YES!” Sam pumped her fists. “FIRST KILL!”

Vlad crossed his arms testily. “Whatever. I weakened them for you.”

 

 

As the night went on, the adventurers wandered further into the dungeon, empty soda cans and chip bags littered the table and the floor. Pizzas were ordered after the incident with the trio of murderous mermaids and before the thing with the floating skulls that shot fireballs.

“WHY!” Sam had a hand to her temple, glaring at Tucker. “YOU KNEW THE MERMAID WAS EVIL WHY WOULD YOU GO INTO THE WATER?”

Vlad sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Dear LORD you would think one would have more sense. It’s water in a DUNGEON! Of COURSE there are monsters in it!”

“HEY.” Tucker pointed a finger at the both of them “IT WAS A MERMAID WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO?”

Sam threw up her hands “NOT TRY TO KISS IT FOR ONE!”

Tucker gave them a glare, taking a slice of cheese pizza and taking a spiteful bite. “If I’m going to die then I’m going to die kissing a mermaid.”

Jack’s brows furrowed. “....But that….that was the problem, you were going to die kissing a mermaid.” He turned to his wife “Right? He was going to die kissing the mermaid.”

Maddie nodded “Yeah…She had teeth as long as your arm... You were going to die kissing the mermaid.”

Tucker scoffed “My love is blind and TRUE! We could have made it work…”

Sam shrugged “Whatever. What should we do with the evil mermaid corpse?”

Danny gave her a look. “Why would you KEEP that?”

Sam shrugged “I dunno...bait?”

“I have proficiency with improvised weapons!” Jack added “I could use the corpse to make another corpse!”

“Nice.” Sam nodded “That’s good, that’s an efficient use of resources.” She pointed at Tucker, Danny and Vlad. “See you two need to think out of the box like Mr. Fenton here.”

Vlad grimaced. “You’re going to smell like dead fish, I hope you know that.”

“Ok it pains me to say this but-” Danny steepled his hands together, taking a deep breath. “I agree with Vlad.”

Sam and Tucker gasped. “No!”

Sam put her hands to her hips. “So you just want me to throw away a perfectly good corpse?”

“YES!” Danny and Vlad announced at once, glaring daggers at Sam over the table.

Sam scoffed “Excuse you I believe in recycling.”

“Having that much dead flesh around will attract monsters.” Vlad reasoned.

“Besides!” Danny threw up his hands “You can’t carry that much weight! Your speed is halved right now!”

Sam rolled her eyes, giving the both of them a glare. “...fine...I put down the dead monster mermaid.”

“Aw…” Jack frowned “I wanted to beat up a monster with another monster….”

 

 

By the third fight all of them were laughing where they sat around the table. Vlad had his hand to his mouth, trying to stifle a snorting laugh, his cheeks entirely red. Sam was sprawled across the table, her shoulders shaking as she laughed. Danny had tears in his eyes, holding his stomach as he laughed uncontrollably. Tucker was slid off his chair, falling to the floor and braying out loud guffaws from where he was currently laying on the floor.

“WOO!” Jack pumped his fists. “I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT WORKED!”

Jack, rolled a twenty and managed to use a live goblin as a baseball bat to punt a floating flaming skull into another floating flaming skull, defeating both in an epic fiery explosion.

Maddie wiped a tear from her eye. “Oh my gosh that was amazing.”

Jack grinned. “Did it look cool?”

Maddie leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. “It looked super cool honey.”

Jack squealed, shaking his fists with excitement.

Maddie glanced at the clock, her eyes widening. “Oh my gosh it’s late.”

The three teens and Vlad all looked to the clock and were shocked to see that somehow it was ten-o-clock at night.

Maddie undid the knot on the felt blanket that made her homemade cape. “Alright honey.” She leaned over and kissed Jack on the cheek again, taking the Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle keys off of the side table. “Since you drove Danny’s friends back home last time, I’ll drive them back home this time.”

Jack smiled at his wife “Thanks love bug! That gives me some time to show Vladdie some of the projects I’ve been dying to show him!”

Vlad looked down at his phone, suddenly worried. He hadn’t meant to have left the creature alone for so long, the cocktail of drugs he had injected it should wear off any time now. “I’d like that Jack…” His brows furrowed. “I’ve been meaning to talk with you actually.”

Maddie’s eyebrows quirked up, her eyes going from Vlad to Jack and back to Vlad. “uh….ok…” She motioned awkwardly to the door. “I’ll just uh...take the kids back…”

Danny, Sam and Tucker shared a look amongst themselves. Danny shrugged, silently letting the others know that he would keep an eye on them. Sam and Tucker nodded back.

“Alright.” Tucker waved “Bye Mr. Fenton. Good job with the whole beating up one monster with another monster thing.”

“Anymore of those Vlad cookies left?” Sam asked.

“Uh…” Jack rose from his seat and ducked into the kitchen quickly. “Yes there’s one left!” He handed the cookie to Sam.

“Thanks Mr. Fenton!” Sam smiled. She stared at Vlad and while maintaining eye contact took a very slow and deliberate bite of the cookie, notably starting at the feet. She pointed at her eyes and then at his in the unmistakable ‘I’m watching you’ gesture.

Maddie rolled her eyes, ushering the both of them out the door. “Come on you two, it’s past your curfews.”

Jack got up from the table, accidentally kicking over a bunch of soda cans. “I have so much to show you!” He was practically vibrating with excitement as he threw open the door in the kitchen leading down to the lab. “TO THE FENTON LABORATORY!”

Vlad followed him down the stairs, his hands in his pockets. Vlad’s mouth was pinched and his brows were furrowed, a distracted look in his eyes.

Danny stood alone in the living room for a moment, surrounded by snack food packages, listening to his mom start up the car in the driveway and drive off.

Danny turned himself intangible and drifted down through the floorboards.

  
  
  


Jack bounded into the Fenton lab like a little kid showing their friend their toys. Vlad followed behind him, his hands in his pockets, his mouth pulled into a slight frown as he tried to put his thoughts in order.

“THIS!” Jack picked up a device that looked like a giant electronic chrome q-tip. “THIS IS THE FENTON GHOST-JABBER!” He thrusted out with the device, parrying with an invisible foe. “SHOULD BE ABLE TO GIVE A GHOST A REAL POKE WITH THIS ONE!”

Vlad looked around the lab, every minute weighing heavily on his mind. “Jack…”

“Or check out THIS BAD BOY! THE FENTON GHOST TRAPPER BALL!” Jack tossed Vlad something that looked like a clear plastic ball about the size of a grapefruit, a small chrome module with a button at the top. Jack leaned over Vlad’s shoulder to explain how it worked. “See you trap a ghost in there and it leeches the ecto-energy right out of it! Making it smaller and smaller until you can manage it. Neat right?”

“Yeah…” Vlad tossed the small ball back and forth in his hands absentmindedly. “Really neat Jack.”

“Or THIS!” Jack had a sock puppet made to look like a ghost on his hand. “The Fenton Ghost lure!” He hunched his shoulders, speaking out of the side of his mouth. “DON’T WORRY ABOUT ME! JUST ANOTHER GHOST!”

Vlad huffed out a laugh despite himself…. but his smile soon fell.

“That was a lie actually…” Jack slipped off the sock puppet and let it drop to the floor. He gave Vlad a smaller smile now, more shy. “That’s…. just a sock puppet I was just trying to get you to laugh.” He gauged the look Vlad was giving him, nervously taking stock of the way Vlad avoided looking at him, the way he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

Jack turned towards the other man fully, he fiddled with his hands, his smile falling fully. “Is this about…. what you wanted to talk about with me?”

Vlad nodded.

Jack frowned, letting out a long sigh and closing his eyes resolutely. “....Is this about the accident?”

Vlad looked up at him, shocked for a moment. They held each other’s gaze for a long moment before Vlad looked away.

“Yes and...yes and no…” Vlad explained quietly.

Jack swallowed. “I’m not…” He shook his head and huffed out a humorless laugh. “I’m not uh...good at this sort of thing but….” He sighed and motioned to the stairs leading back up and out of the basement laboratory. “Let’s go to the observatory upstairs there’s uh…” Jack coughed “...more air up there.”

Danny watched the two of them trudge back up the stairs from where he was intangible through the wall. For a moment Vlad paused, a tiny wisp of ghostly energy coming from his mouth as he sensed the other half-ghost. He whipped his head around and Danny retreated farther through the wall with a flinch. 

Vlad took a moment to glare at the room, but continued to follow Jack up the stairs.

Jack opened the door to the lage observatory perched on top of the building. Vlad took a look at the curved steel walls as he walked in, still unsure just how Jack got permission from the city to build an extension like this.

Jack opened the far-side doors to a small veranda overlooking the city. He stepped out, leaning over the railing next to an oversized telescope. The wan lights from the street lamps below sending a bit of yellow light up at him.

“I’ve always liked being in the city.” Jack mused. “There's always so much going on, always so many neighbors, you know you’re never alone, not  _ really. _ ”

“Jack.” Vlad stepped towards the veranda, but didn’t step through the doors, instead staying in the shadow of the observatory.

“I know…” Jack whispered, setting his elbow on the railing and resting his head on his hand glumly. “I’m stalling because I’m not good at this…”

Vlad snuck a look at his phone in his pocket, silently noting every minute that had past. “Jack…” He took a deep breath. His throat felt like it had a lump in it. He was fiddling with his cufflinks nervously. “...We need to talk about the accident…”

Jack frowned, turning towards him, his brows drawn at unhappy angles. “....Do you….still think I did it on purpose?”

Vlad was taken aback for a moment. “What? No.” He crossed onto the veranda, standing next to Jack and leaning over the railing with him. 

Jack gave him a solemn look. “Because I didn’t Vlad. You have to believe me when I say I didn’t.”

Vlad nodded. He sighed and closed his eyes. “...I know Jack.”

Jack rubbed the bridge between his eyes. “But you did think I did it for a while after it happened….”

Vlad nodded. He played with his cufflinks, spinning them in place and watching the gem shimmer in the low light rather than look Jack in the eyes. “...I did.”

Jack’s brows furrowed. “Why?”

Vlad blinked at him “Why what?”

Jack looked crestfallen. “Why would you think I would do that?” He put his hand to his chest “Vlad you’re my best friend! One of the most important people in my life! Why would-”

Vlad groaned, rubbing his temples. “Because I was stupid ok!” He threw up one of his hands “I was stupid, and alone, and in pain and I wanted there to be a REASON!” 

Jack gave him a look. “What reason?” He asked quietly.

Vlad huffed. “I thought…” He ran a hand through his hair. “Well I convinced myself that…”

“Yeah?” Jack urged.

Vlad sighed. “I thought that you did it on purpose because…” He had his hands in the air, trying a way to phrase it. “Because you wanted me out of the way so you could date Maddie.”

Jack stared at him for a moment like Vlad just told him that he thought there was a secret colony of illuminati dogs on the moon. His mouth open and his eyes hooded.

There was a long moment.

Jack burst out laughing.

There was a blush to Vlad’s cheeks. He crossed his arms testily. “It’s not funny!”

“I know.” Jack continued to laugh. “It’s really not funny. It’s not funny at all, it’s really….sad actually. You thought I tried to murder you over Maddie. You really watched too many soap operas didn’t you Vladdie?”

“I know I know…” Vlad groaned, rubbing a hand down his face. “It’s stupid but…” He grimaced “I mean I saw later that you two had gotten married only a couple of years after...and…”

Vlad swallowed, his mouth pinched. “...and you knew I had a crush on her so…”

Jack smiled sadly. “We only got close after the accident because we both missed you.”

Vlad looked up at that, his eyes wide.

Jack huffed out a laugh. “You were gone and there was this big hole in our lives suddenly and it just kinda….” He shrugged. “...happened.”

Vlad couldn’t help but laugh too, not because any of it was funny really, but because there was some sort of tension that was let go. 

Vlad watched the glow of the city with Jack. The neighbors across from the Fentons switched off their lights, getting ready for the night. He was suddenly struck by how small this town really was, how unimaginably fragile it all was in comparison to the dark forces that threatened to tear it apart at any minute.

Dark forces like the ones Vlad was currently housing in his basement.

However, looking over at the town of Amityville park, the cool breeze in his hair, the stars above him and a friend next to him, it all seemed so far away.

“You were so rushed with the project.” Vlad mused. “You were so excited you didn’t let me or Maddie see it until the test day.”

“If I had let either of you check it.” Jack sighed, looking unhappily into the night. “None of that mess would have happened...”

Vlad huffed. “We’ll never know…” He bumped a shoulder into Jack’s “Are you sure you weren’t trying to impress her though?”

Jack laughed. “I wasn’t trying to impress _ her _ .” He turned to look at Vlad. “I was trying to impress  _ you _ !”

Vlad stared back at him. “What?”

Jack shrugged “I wanted to show you that I wasn’t just the dumb friend! I wanted to show you that I could really DO something! That I didn’t just…” He looked pained for a moment “...ruin everything I touch...but…”

Vlad swallowed hard. “You’re not dumb Jack….You just don’t stop and think things through.” 

There was something...something raw that Vlad wasn’t sure how to confront. He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “And you knew…” He bit his bottom lip “You knew I liked Maddie, but you never…”

Jack shrugged and smiled brightly back at him. “You two were my best friends! I just wanted to see both of you happy!”

How dare he.

How even DARE Jack say that sort of thing to Vlad’s face, after everything Vlad has ever done. How dare he look at Vlad with that bright smile on his face, actually being grateful that Vlad was there with him, and say THAT.

Vlad burst into tears. 

Jack was shocked upright. “Vlad?”

Vlad had both hands pressed over his mouth, shoulders shaking and tears running down his cheeks and across his knuckles.

“VLAD?” Jack looked down at Vlad, his eyes wide and full of fear. “Are you alright? What did I do?”

Vlad ran a ran a through his hair, sniffling and scrubbing at his cheeks. “Oh my god Jack you’re so much of a better person than I am.”

Jack put a hand on Vlad’s shoulder, giving him time to pull away if he wanted to, when he didn’t Jack pulled him into a hug, Vlad crying a huge wet blot onto the front of his shirt. He patted his back. “That’s not true.” He assured him.

“But it is!” Vlad pulled away, suddenly frantic. “It really, really IS!” Vlad sucked in a breath “Good GOD you think I’m a better person than I am. You deserve a better friend then me and I-”

“Vlad.” Jack cut off his babbling with a hand on either of his shoulders. “I’m saying this in the kindest way I possibly can…” He shook Vlad slightly. “Shut up.”

“But I-” Vlad protested.

Jack shook him again. “No shut up.” He shook his head. “Goddamn it Vlad I put you in the hospital!” He frowned. “I thought for YEARS about what happened! If I had just taken another look, if I had let you and Maddie look at it, if I had waited, made sure that the area around it was clear before I pushed the button….” He smiled down at Vlad. “And now that I finally have you back in my life again I’m not going to let it get ruined by you thinking that you’re not worth having us care about because of an old misunderstanding.” He pulled back to give Vlad a smile. “You’re my best friend Vlad! You’re my best friend and I’m glad to have you back again!”

Vlad felt his heart break in the best possible way. Something old and venomous melting away from his heart.

“Hey Jack?” Vlad asked around the lump in his throat.

Jack smiled down at him, the lights from the city painting his face in a warm glow, his grey eyes shot through with streaks of warm color. “Yeah?”

_ I’m a half ghost.The experiment mutated me and I became one of the biggest threats to the city and probably humanity in general there ever was. I tried to take over the world. I tried to manipulate Maddie into being my wife. I tried to kill you on multiple occasions. This probably would have continued, say for one of my schemes to gain power to use the deity of Truth. instead I was forced to realize that I absolutely was full of shit. I made a monster I was going to unleash on the city, but now I don’t know if I can stop it. _

It was on the tip of his tongue, waiting to be blurted out, but the way Jack looked down at him, puppyish, full of hope, and absolutely joyous in his belief that his best friend was someone better than he thought he was, made Vlad stop.

“Um…”  _ I messed up. Please help me I messed up so badly. _ “Thank you.”

Jack grinned and pulled him back for a hug. “No problem Vlad...No problem…”   
  
  


 

Danny sunk back intangibly through the wall, the conversation between Vlad and his father running through his head. 

Out of all of his villains Vlad had stuck with him, not because he was the strongest or the most evil or something, but because some small part of Danny couldn’t help but sympathize. Danny had also been afraid when he had gotten his powers. If he hadn’t of had his friends with him then maybe he could have descended down the same path Vlad did, lying to himself to justify some of the things he did.

Sometimes after pulling a particularly mean spirited prank on Dash in his ghost form, he would ask himself. “Is this what it was like? Did it start small like this? Small cruelties that seemed justified in your head because of some reason or another then graduating to larger and larger evils?”

Vlad had first presented himself as a mentor to Danny and it had been tempting. It had been a relief to know that he wasn’t the only person on the planet that had gone through the process of being a half-ghost. 

That was what had made it so hurtful when he discovered Vlad’s plot when it came to his mother and father. Danny had finally found the one person in the world who understood exactly what he was going through.

And the guy was an asshole.

A weird old, stupid asshole who had stupid ideas about marrying his mom, killing his dad and ruling the world. He deserved to be punched, and often.

So he did.

However, seeing Vlad though now, allowing himself to be hugged by his dad, looking small and for lack of a better word...human. He couldn’t help but feel the same kind of hope his mom felt for him while she made those cookies for him in the kitchen, that Vlad was trying and that maybe he really could do it, be better than the bitter old asshole he was today.

Danny watched Vlad and his father walk down the stairs from the observatory, down into the main house, through the kitchen and into the front room. There was quiet conversation and one last long drawn out hug at the door before Vlad finally left. Danny watched as his father walked right through him, a small hopeful smile on his face. He looked like a weight had been lifted from him.

Danny floated over to the door. He crossed the threshold, not yet turning tangible. He wanted to say something. He wanted to ask Vlad if he was really trying. He wanted to tell him that he hoped he stopped being a dick.

He wanted to thank him for making his parents happier then he’s seen them in a while.

However before he could speak he noticed something. 

Vlad had stopped walking to his car. He stood in the walkway, his shoulders hunched, clenching and unclenching his hands. Vlad turned back to the house, staring hard, his brows furrowed and a hard look in his eyes. 

He suddenly turned intangible and floated down through the concrete and towards the basement.

Danny followed him.

Vlad became solid once more when he reached the laboratory, his ghost form eying the work tables in the lab. He picked up the fenton ghost trapper. He stared hard at the little gizmo in his hand before he sighed and pocketed it.

Danny stared, feeling the tentative hope that he had built for Vlad shatter into a million pieces.

Vlad engaged the ghost portal and-

“OH FUCK YOU!” Danny screamed, pouncing on Vlad and knocking the both of them into the portal.

Vlad’s eyes widened, blocking the flurry of angry blows the youth sent his way on instinct. “DANIEL?”

“SHUT UP VLAD!” Danny yelled, throwing another vicious punch that Vlad blocked. “YOU’RE A REAL FUCKING PIECE OF WORK!”

Vlad disengaged. “OH WHAT NOW?” He yelled back, looking down to his phone and noting the time on the clock. “I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!”

With Vlad distracted, Danny send a volley of laser blasts his way, knocking Vlad back a good hundred or so feet into the ghost zone. “YOU LIAR! YOU FUCKING LIAR!”

Vlad disengaged, flying towards the opening in his own laboratory, Danny hot on his heels in pursuit. “I HAVEN’T LIED!” He grimaced to himself. “....WELL…. NOT RECENTLY!”

He reached the opening of his lab just as Danny caught up with him, knocking the both of them to the steel floor of Vlad’s laboratory.

“YOU FUCKING DARE-” Danny punched Vlad in the face. “-MAKE MY PARENTS HAVE HOPE FOR YOU-” He punched Vlad again. “-YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!” He punched him again. “ALL SO YOU CAN HURT THEM AGAIN?”

Vlad caught his fist. “I DON’T WANT TO HURT THEM!” Vlad’s eyes were wide and frantic “THAT’S WHAT THIS WHOLE THING IS ABOUT! I’M TRYING TO PROTECT THEM!”

Danny sneered down at him. “PROTECT THEM FROM WHAT?”

There was a loud screech, the sound of metal shearing against metal. The two half-ghosts looked up just as a spiny tentacle punched its way through the reinforced wall of the cell Vlad had made for it. An acid green eye peered out the hole, the pupil dilating.

The creature was awake.

And it was  _ mad _ .

“Oh…” Vlad hissed to himself. “....butter biscuits.”   
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I have a whole homestuck series and a marvel series to run when I'm not over here. I finished "Harley Quinn and Deadpool BFFs 5-ever" though so that's good. 
> 
> I'm going to take November off for Nanorimo off so I can work on an original project called "Mothwoman and the professor" about a cryptid and a dork solving supernatural crimes in victorian london. If you like my brand of humor, shenanigans and FEELS then you would probably like it! The previous chapters are on my page now and I'll be updating as far as I can get.
> 
> Meanwhile, tell me what you thought of the chapter! I'm really curious about your thoughts! Favorite parts? Parts that made you cry or have THE FEELS? Let me know!

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you liked! Also please check out "The Espil Mirror" which is fantastic, I highly recommend it!


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